


This might be the quarantini talking but I think I like you

by cherrysin



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bottom Im Changkyun | I.M, Bottom!Changkyun, Dom/sub Undertones, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Light Bondage, M/M, Smut, Top Lee Hoseok | Wonho, all kinds of tones really, and overtones, changkyun is a sarcastic little shit who just wants to be held, it's just a very sexy plot, jooheon's in it somewhere, not a slow burn, seriously the word masturbation is in the first sentence, there is a plot though I swear, top!wonho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:33:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrysin/pseuds/cherrysin
Summary: It turns out spending lockdown with your friend's hot brother is harder than you'd think.
Relationships: Im Changkyun | I.M/Lee Hoseok | Wonho
Comments: 39
Kudos: 228





	1. Everything is fine

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: this is a lockdown au so I do mention the pandemic (in mostly broad terms but it's definitely in there) so if you think that might upset you please don't read it!
> 
> So...it's been a while. Sorry about that, I got distracted for a couple of years there, you know how it is.
> 
> Anyway, I present to you: a lockdown 'hey we're stuck in this apartment together for a month and your biceps are looking real good right now' wonkyun special. The worlds a bit of a shitty, confusing place and I just wanted something lighthearted to focus on so here we are. It's not going to be that long - they're only in there for a month - but I'm chaptering it anyway because it makes it easier when I have to go back and check I actually remembered to put in the bit about carpet burns. That'll make sense later. Promise.
> 
> I'll probably be updating daily, maybe every couple of days depending how much I get buried under real life, but I already have most of it written so I've put everything I can think of in the tags. I apologise in advance if I get carried away and toss an untagged butt plug into the last chapter. And sorry for talking so much, I'll let you get on with it now.
> 
> By the way, a 'quarantini' is a lockdown cocktail; quarantine martini - quarantini, get it?  
> 

Changkyun was a young teenager when he first discovered the joys of masturbation. He might’ve been a little late to the party – he had other, more pressing concerns before then, like pop quizzes and symbols suddenly appearing in math – but once he arrived, he took to it like a duck to fucking water. Apparently that Summer was one of the hottest on record but he wouldn’t know. He didn’t go outside.

Anyway, even including that memorable time – when you could’ve lifted his bedsheets in one solid mass and cracked them clean in half – he’s never been this fucking horny in his entire goddamn life.

Of course, back then, he was only fantasising about muscular, sweaty men with biceps the size of his head. Now he’s watching one do sit-ups on his fucking living room carpet.  
“Is it okay if I do this here?” the physical embodiment of every wet dream he’s ever had asks, pausing mid-sit to face him.  
Changkyun tries to put his tongue back in his mouth.  
“It’s fine,” he replies, sounding amazingly normal for someone choking on their own saliva. “It’s not like there’s space anywhere else.”  
“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, Kyunnie.”

Changkyun’s stomach clenches. Oh yes, and the beefcake has taken to calling him ‘Kyunnie’. Which is absolutely fine and doesn’t make him want to whimper out loud at all. He swallows. Pfft, that would be crazy.

“Seriously, it’s fine. Just don’t block the screen when I’m watching La Casa de Papel or I’ll have to kill you with a dumbbell.”  
“Wow, really, you’d murder me with my own gym equipment for a TV show?”  
Changkyun points at him. “First of all, it’s not a TV show, it’s a lifestyle. Second of all, yes I would and I’d make it look like a fucking accident, too.”  
Hoseok laughs. “How the hell would you make bludgeoning me to death look like an accident?”  
“Simple. Oh how tragic, he left such a heavy dumbbell on such a high and unstable shelf. Such a shame it gave way when he was standing underneath it like that, caved his head right in. What a terrible and tragic accident for someone so young.”

The beefcake stares at him. “Shit, Kyunnie. For someone who always has sweater paws, you’re kind of terrifying, you know that?”  
“All part of my charm,” Changkyun replies dryly.  
“True,” Hoseok, surprising the shit out of him. “I’ll never interrupt your TV sh– I mean lifestyle. Pinky swear.”  
Then, with a level of cuteness that someone who could bench press a fucking Peugeot absolutely should not be able to achieve, he extends his little finger and Changkyun leans forward to link it with his own. He may be frothing at the mouth at the thought of being pinned up against the wall and fucked into oblivion by the guy but a pinky swear is a pinky swear. And it gives him an excuse to stare at him up close.

With a smile that’s 80% gums, 20% fucking sunshine, Hoseok goes back to his sit ups and Changkyun goes back to silently trying not to get hard. That’s his name, Hoseok. Lee Hoseok, Lee Jooheon’s older brother. Jooheon being Changkyun’s best friend and roommate of about a million years who took off on a study abroad program a few months ago and left Changkyun digging around in sofa cushions for pennies he could use for rent or, you know, food. Everything seemed to happen very fast after that.

One minute, Jooheon was calling with the perfect solution to all their problems and the next, Changkyun was holding the door open while Hercules hauled about eight fucking tonnes of gym equipment across the threshold. Then he’d straightened up, tugged his hood down and that was that. Changkyun’s been fucked ever since.

Well, no, actually he hasn’t. That’s the whole fucking problem. Maybe if he could just get someone to fuck him – not even for that long, he just needs, like, twenty goddamn minutes at this point – it’d at least take the edge off and he could go about his day without fantasising about biting Hoseok’s forearms every thirty seconds. But no. Of course not because this is a cruel and unjust world and Changkyun’s not even the kind of dickhead to ignore those 2 metre social distancing stickers in line at the grocery store, let alone have someone inside him.

Not even when they’ve been put in a nationwide lockdown and his government assigned roommate is his friend’s brother, who he just so happens to want to climb like a fucking tree and ride into a better future.

It’s fine. It’s only three more weeks – well, twenty-three days – and at least he had the foresight to buy new batteries for his vibrator before the earth went to shit.

What could possibly go wrong?


	2. Sofa cushions are dry clean only, apparently

His positive attitude lasts exactly thirteen seconds.

Changkyun’s too busy thinking about the best way to stifle the noise from his vibrator to notice Hoseok pushing himself up off the floor until he’s flopped onto the sofa beside him and by then it’s just too fucking late.  
“What the fuck?” he blurts, scrambling further away. He doesn’t get far; there’s only so much space you can create on a two-seater sofa.  
“I’m tired, just let me sit here for a minute.”  
“Go take a shower, then. You’re sweating on the cushions,” Changkyun complains, cushions the absolute furthest thing from his mind.

Hoseok laughs “Oh I’m so sorry. Is my sweat bothering you, your highness?”  
No. “Yes, look at that fucking damp patch. Gross.”  
“Oh, it’s gross is it?” Hoseok challenges and there’s an edge to his voice now, the kind of edge that matches the dark glint in the man’s normally soft chocolate eyes. The kind of edge that makes Changkyun’s mouth dry.

He swallows. “Uh…yes?”  
Hoseok arches one perfectly symmetrical eyebrow at him and he bites the inside of his cheek against the sudden urge to whine. His pulse thrums in the base of his throat, his ears, his temples. They’re on the edge of something – exactly what he has no fucking idea but he wants it. Jesus fucking Christ does he want it.

“Just to be clear,” Hoseok says slowly, in a voice so low and intense Changkyun has to repress a shudder, “You’re disgusted, right?”  
“No.”  
The word slips out before he can stop it. He can’t help it. He’s confused and hot and horny and here’s Hoseok, just sitting right next to him and _staring_ like he’s trying to turn him to flames with his eyes and it’s fucking working too because his whole body is on fire and he hasn’t even touched him. Yet. Fuck, he wants that to be a ‘yet’.

“No?” Hoseok prompts and he’s so close. So, so close. And so fucking far away. “Then what do you feel?”  
Everything. He feels fucking everything. Embarrassment at his own neediness makes his skin prickle, his face flushing, and he looks down at his hands. All Hoseok’s done is look at him and his dick is already straining against the fabric of his pants like it’s begging for attention and it’s even worse because that’s exactly what _he_ wants to do.  
“Look at me,” Hoseok commands and his head snaps back up automatically, making him look even needier.  
Hoseok doesn’t seem to mind, though, because he smiles – a cat-like smile of satisfaction that makes Changkyun’s cock twitch – and shifts impossibly closer.  
“Good boy,” he murmurs, his breath washing over Changkyun’s lips. “Now, do you want me to leave?”

“Say it,” Hoseok tells him when he shakes his head and he bites his lip. Embarrassment and need war in his brain until, under the weight of the other man’s gaze, need finally wins out and he buckles.  
“No,” he manages, earning himself another one of those smiles.  
“Do you want me to touch you?”  
“Yes,” he replies – immediately this time, shame evaporating at the thought of finally, finally having Hoseok’s hands on him. On him and all over him and inside him and God having Hoseok _inside _him - his fingers, his cock, he doesn’t even fucking care at this point. He’ll take fucking all of it.__

____

“Ask me.”  
Changkyun’s breath hitches. Hoseok just looks at him steadily, watching. Waiting. He’s close enough to touch, close enough to lick but he can’t because Hoseok hasn’t said he can and he’s so frustrated he could fucking cry because here he is, half-hard and completely ready and the other man won’t touch him until he does what he wants, until he obeys and oh, fuck it. It's too late to save his dignity, anyway, he's practically fucking panting. Why not throw in a 'please' too?

____

“Can…can you touch me?” he asks hopefully. “Please?”

____

Just like that all the anxiety, the self-loathing – hell, the fucking embarrassment is worth it because Hoseok makes a low noise just slightly too hungry to be a groan that goes right to Changkyun’s aching dick and tugs him into his lap.  
“Fuck, you asked so nicely,” Hoseok tells him and if Changkyun weren’t already coming out of his skin he’d fucking preen at the praise. “You’re so well behaved, aren’t you, Kyunnie?”  
He nods his agreement and then, remembering Hoseok likes it when he tells him, says it instead. 

____

Hoseok pinching his chin between two fingers is the only warning he gets before he catches his mouth in a kiss so demanding it makes him fucking whimper. He doesn’t let up – parting his lips with his tongue so he can kiss him deeper, harder, and it’s perfect and incredible and everything Changkyun’s been wanting so he kisses him back every bit as hungrily. His fingers dig into the other man’s bare shoulders and he loves the way the muscles jump under his touch, loves how big the other man is underneath him. He revels in it – in all of it – until finally it’s not enough anymore.

____

“Hoseok,” he half moans, half pants when he pulls back just enough to breathe.  
The other man doesn’t give an inch – leaning down to burn a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses down his neck that feel so fucking good he doesn’t even care anymore that he’s whimpering like a needy bitch or that his dick is dripping with so much precum he can feel it leaking through his boxers. Hoseok wants him to ask for what he wants so fuck it, he will.

____

“I want to cum,” he says, gasping when he feels the sharp sting of teeth against his throat. “Please can you make me cum?”

____

It’s obviously the question Hoseok was waiting for because he flicks his tongue over the outer shell of Changkyun’s ear, wracking a delicious shudder through his whole body, and murmurs, “Lift your hips up.”  
Changkyun doesn’t need telling twice. It’s awkward in this position, with his arms around Hoseok’s neck and his legs either side of his, but he makes it work. He’s so fucking horny, he’d do fucking acrobatics if it meant getting his dick free of these goddamn pants. Thankfully, Hoseok is every bit as against the fabric as he is because he makes quick work of tugging them down just enough to palm his cock and – in a show of dexterity Changkyun would probably be impressed by if he wasn’t so fucking caught up in the fact that his poor, neglected dick is finally getting some attention – does the same with his own.

____

“Fuck, look at you,” Hoseok says, grazing the tip with his thumb and pulling it away with so much precum Changkyun should probably be embarrassed. He’s not. “So hard and wet and all I did was kiss you. Imagine if I’d fucked you, Kyunnie, you’d be a whining mess.”  
Changkyun can only moan. Then Hoseok encircles his dick in one large hand and he has to grit his teeth not to just cum right fucking there and then.  
“You like that idea, huh?” he continues, stroking him slowly. Excruciatingly fucking slowly. So fucking slowly it takes every ounce of self-restraint Changkyun has not to just thrust up into his hand. “You want me to flip you over and spread you open right here? You could fuck yourself with your vibrator first – right here on my lap so I can watch it split you open – and then, when you’re all messy and begging for my cock, I’ll fuck you. I bet you’d take my cock so well, wouldn’t you Kyunnie? I bet your ass is clenching just thinking about it.”

____

Hoseok’s hand tightens on his dick, jerking him harder, and he keens, gripping his shoulders.  
“Can I – oh fuck – can I jerk you off too?”  
Hoseok tugs his head to the side, hard, and he gasps – the sting making his cock drool over the other man’s fingers as he works them up and down. Lips find his neck, teeth scraping against his skin as a warning – a punishment – and he feels his balls tighten.  
“Ask nicely,” Hoseok instructs and Changkyun’s getting the hang of this now.  
“Can I jerk you off,” he asks again, “Please?”

____

Hoseok releases his hair and gives him a brief kiss of approval. “Such a good boy. Go ahead, Kyunnie, wrap your fingers around my cock.”  
Fucking _finally _. Changkyun doesn’t hesitate before he reaches between them, closing his hand around the base of the other man’s shaft. Fuck he’s big. All of him is big but his dick is something else – not long like those terrifying Olympic fucking torches you see in low grade porn but thick. He can barely close his fingers around it but he does, fucking loving the way it makes Hoseok’s breath hitch next to his ear.__

______ _ _

There’s no finesse to it. Changkyun’s too far fucking gone to concentrate on form and hand jobs really aren’t his strongest talent so it’s sloppy and a little gross when he spits on his hand and misses the first time, hitting Hoseok’s naked torso, but neither of them care. Hoseok’s moving his hand faster and whispering into his ear, each word filthier than the last, and he’s close. Fuck, he’s so fucking close.

______ _ _

“Cum for me, Kyunnie,” Hoseok tells him, breath ragged against his ear, “With your fingers around my cock.”

______ _ _

That’s all it takes. Just one sentence and he’s falling apart, moaning and panting and shuddering into Hoseok’s hand. His forehead hits the other man’s shoulder – his hand shaking around his dick so violently, Hoseok has to wrap his own fingers over his and jerk himself off with Changkyun’s hand. Changkyun doesn’t care. He just listens to him groan, long and tortured against his temple, and the wet sounds of their hands working his shaft – their spit and sweat and cum mingling together along its length in some kind of filthy fucking lube until Hoseok finally tenses, his hand stilling, and pulls Changkyun’s head back up to kiss him sloppily as he climaxes.

______ _ _

Then they sit there with their foreheads pressed together – just breathing the same air – and it’s so fucking fantastic, so genuinely nice, that it’s at least half an hour before Changkyun realises that sweat is now the _least _terrible thing on those sofa cushions.__

And that he’s just made a huge fucking mistake.

______ _ _


	3. Dragons might not get the party started but boy do they finish them

“What’re you doing?”

Changkyun almost jumps out of his fucking skin.  
He blinks – trying to clear the glare of Wildfire from his eyes – until a face floats into view. A very familiar face with a very familiar, irritatingly adorable blonde bedhead and…are those _flannel pyjamas _?  
“Hoseok. I, er, I didn’t know you were still up.”  
“I figured,” Hoseok replies – still leaning over him. Yep, those are flannel pyjamas alright. “Since you’re lying out here, in the public domain and not hiding from me in your bedroom.”  
“I don’t hide from you,” Changkyun replies, you know, like a liar.  
Hoseok raises an eyebrow. He does that a lot. “Is that so? Then you wouldn’t mind me joining you to watch–” He glances at the screen and frowns. “Is that an orgy? Are you watching porn in the living room?”  
“It’s Game of Thrones.”  
Hoseok laughs. “So, that’s a yes then. Scooch over, I’ve never seen this episode.”__

__He doesn’t wait for Changkyun to finish – or even start – scooching over before he plonks himself down and despite his protests, Changkyun still winds up trapped securely between the blankets and the other man’s obnoxiously large body. Great. He’s spent the whole day avidly avoiding being in the same room as the guy and now he’s stuck so close to him he can smell his fucking apple shampoo._ _

__“Why are you on the floor, anyways?” Hoseok asks, oblivious to his plight.  
Changkyun tries an experimental wriggle. “The sofa is still wet.”  
Hoseok turns away from the screen, where a dragon seems to be gate-crashing the orgy, to stare at him. “What?”  
“I had to scrub it,” he elaborates, wriggling a little harder. “It said dry-clean only and I couldn’t bring myself to send cum-stained sofa cushions to the nice little old lady at the dry cleaners.”  
Hoseok snorts. “I’ve seen what people take in there, semen on a sofa would only be, like, the tenth grossest thing to go in that place. Ninth, tops.”_ _

__“Fine, next time _you _deal with it, then.”  
He says it without thinking but Hoseok picks up on it all the same. Of course he does because obviously Changkyun did something terrible in a past life and now he’s being punished for it.  
“You know, you don’t have to avoid me,” Hoseok tells him conversationally. “I don’t bite.”  
Changkyun scoffs. “Well, that’s a fucking lie.”  
“Okay, I don’t bite unless you ask me to.”  
“When the hell did I ever–” He rounds on him – as best you can round on someone when everything from the neck down is stuck in a duvet straitjacket – and finds Hoseok grinning from ear to ear. He was baiting him, the bastard.___ _

____“Asshole,” Changkyun mumbles and Hoseok laughs, rolling onto his side to face him.  
“Come on, how else was I supposed to get you to look at me?”  
“I look at you a normal amount, thanks very much.”  
“No, you _used _to look at me a normal amount. Then you _pretended _to look at me a normal amount but secretly stared at my hands when you thought I wouldn’t notice. Now you just avoid looking at me altogether.”  
“That’s – okay, fine,” he caves, noticing the dangerous way the other man’s eyes narrow when he starts to protest. “So maybe I’ve been…avoiding you a little bit.”  
“A little bit? When I walked into the kitchen this morning you ran out so fast you forgot to put down the jar of peanut butter you were holding. You took fucking peanut butter into the bathroom with you, Kyunnie.”_____ _ _ _

________“What do you want from me, Hoseok? I literally begged you to touch me,” Changkyun fires back, making a mental note to move the jar still sitting beside the sink later.  
“You didn’t beg.”  
“I said please,” he points out, rolling his eyes. “Then I got so turned on from kissing you, I ruined a pair of boxers. Actually _ruined_ them.”  
“I remember.”  
Changkyun nods, satisfied he’s made his point. “There you go then.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

________“No, not ‘there you go then’,” Hoseok replies, visibly exasperated. “I _remember _because it was fucking hot. Shit, if you hadn’t already scrubbed the cushions, I’d suggest another round.”  
Changkyun stares at him. “What?”  
Hoseok waves the hand that isn’t propping his head up. “Don’t worry, even I wouldn’t mess up what had to be, what, three hours of cleaning?”  
It was four, actually, and he’d had to use a toothbrush for some of it but Changkyun couldn’t give less of a shit about that right now because he’s still stuck on that last part.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

__________“Hold on a fucking minute, are you saying you’d want to do it _again _?”  
Now it’s Hoseok’s turn to stare at him like he’s grown a second head. Which, honestly, he wouldn’t be at all surprised by at this point. This whole year started to feel like some kind of fucking fever dream mid-March and it’s been getting progressively more hallucinogenic ever since.___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

____________“You’re serious,” Hoseok says, like he’s surprised, and then he barks out a laugh. “Oh my God, Kyunnie, have you been avoiding me because you thought I was gonna blow you off?”  
“Not exactly,” Changkyun answers, shifting uncomfortably. It’s getting pretty hot in his blanket burrito prison and this conversation isn’t helping.  
“Did you not think the fact that I, I don’t know, _came on you _, was maybe a hint that I was having a good time?”  
“Oh, please. People do and say all kinds of shit when they’re horny, it doesn’t mean they don’t regret it afterwards and make you feel like shit for enjoying it.”___ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________Hoseok looks at him, then. Really, properly looks and Changkyun realises he might’ve said too much. It’s true, he hasn’t had the best track record with guys – always winding up with douches or internally homophobic asshats who think it’s okay to tell everyone they’d rather scoop out their own eyeballs than kiss a guy but still want you to suck their dick in secret. Yeah, his past experiences aren’t all sunshine and fucking roses, but whose are?_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“Okay,” Hoseok says decisively and Changkyun blinks warily at him.  
“Okay?”  
“Just be clear,” the other man continues, a smile playing on his lips despite how serious he sounds, “I do not regret what happened on the sofa.”  
Changkyun swallows. “You don’t?”  
Hoseok shakes his head. “Nope. Not even a little bit. Actually, no, that’s not true; I’m kind of regretting not making this clear when you were still sat in my lap but in my defence, I was distracted. Mostly by the fact that you were in my lap.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_____________________“Oh,” Changkyun says.  
Hoseok flicks a stray hair out of his eyes and a dull ache spreads through his chest that he vehemently ignores. “As much as I enjoyed the mutual handjobs – and I did – I also really want to fuck you.”  
“Oh,” Changkyun says again because his brain seems to be shutting down and that’s all he can come up with.  
“Probably not right this second because I’m pretty sure there’s a dragon setting fire to a bunch of naked people on the TV and the idea of burning junk is making my balls shrink back up inside my body. But when they come back out again, I would like nothing more than to go a few rounds with you on the carpet. Okay?”_ _ _ _ _ _ _

______________“Okay,” Changkyun breathes, nodding without even fully realising he’s doing it. “Dragonless carpet sex when your balls are back out sounds good to me.”_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I think Changkyun in this fic just needs a quick wank followed by 45-50 minutes of human contact. Or, as I like to call it, 'The Lockdown Special'.
> 
> Anyhow, this is short I know but the first couple of chapters are always a little short and shitty - just think of them as a warm-up to set the scene for the big extravaganza of chapter 4. Which is basically just me trying to figure out how many variations on the word 'fuck' I could cram in to one piece of writing. A lot, as it turns out. Isn't language a beautiful thing?


	4. Are those carpet burns on your ass or are you just pleased to see me

Hoseok’s balls, as it turns out, have an impressively fast rebound time.

Within five minutes of switching the channel to something a little less ‘flaming orgies’ and a little more ‘overbaked bunt’ – whatever the hell _that_ is – he’s sliding his fingers up Changkyun’s inner thigh with clear intent. Changkyun, for his part, tries to ignore the goose bumps that break out all over his body when fingertips meet his bare skin under the duvet.

“No pyjamas?” Hoseok says from behind him, sounding equally surprised and pleased with the discovery.  
“They’re too restrictive,” Changkyun answers and then grins to himself, “But if you’ve got a spare pair of those really sexy flannel ones, I wouldn’t mind borrowing–”  
He breaks off, laughing as Hoseok tugs him onto his back – pinning him against the carpet with his huge body. Hoseok shakes his head, grinning himself, and opens his mouth to say something when he freezes.

“What?” Changkyun asks, his laughter dying when seconds tick past and Hoseok still doesn’t stop staring.  
Hoseok flicks his eyes up to his briefly, long enough for Changkyun to realise the dragons are well and truly fucking forgotten. Then his gaze falls again – to Changkyun’s mouth, he realises – and he shifts, using one forearm to prop himself up, to hold Changkyun’s chin. His thumb rests against his lips, the metal of his ring cold against Changkyun's skin, and he presses. Not hard. He barely puts any pressure into it at all but it’s enough to let Changkyun know exactly what he’s telling him to do.

 _Open up_.

So he does.

“I had your tongue in my _mouth_ ,” Hoseok says, staring between his parted lips, “How the fuck did I not notice it was pierced?”  
Changkyun swallows, grateful when the other man releases his chin and he doesn't end up drooling on himself.  
“Peanut brittle.”  
“What?”  
“Peanut brittle,” he says again, shrugging. “It’s hard to eat without the ball things getting in the way so I just take the whole barbell out. Saves on dental fees.”

Hoseok nods but Changkyun has a feeling it’s not peanut brittle and dentists taking up his thoughts right now. When the man leans down to kiss him seconds later, it confirms it. Not that he minds. It’s impossible to mind with Hoseok kissing him so fucking…thoroughly. Like he’s got all the time in the fucking world and he plans to spend it doing exactly this. Which is perfectly fine with Changkyun because somehow ‘thorough’ is every bit as good as hard and demanding – maybe even fucking better, really, because it’s slow and languid and just fucking intoxicating.

Then Hoseok finds his tongue and _sucks_ and yep, better, he decides as he moans right into his mouth. Definitely better.

“So needy,” Hoseok chuckles, pulling back to grip his chin again. “You want my dick inside you already, Kyunnie?”

He does. He really fucking does but he wants something else first so instead of answering he lets his mouth fall open, drawing the other man’s thumb between his lips and – holding his gaze – he sucks. Hard. Hoseok’s breath catches and he grins internally. He’s good at this, he knows he is. He might not have the thickest lips but fuck does he know how to give a spectacular fucking blow job. The man groans, low and guttural, and it sounds so good Changkyun just can’t wait anymore.

He releases his thumb with a lewd pop and licks his lips, thrilled with the way Hoseok’s eyes follow the movement.  
“I want it in my mouth first,” he says, breath quickening. “Can I suck you off? Please?”  
Changkyun’s learning very quickly that saying ‘please’ and begging someone to let you lick their cock – just for example – is well worth the embarrassment because it always seems to get him _exactly_ what he fucking wants.

“How could I refuse?” Hoseok replies, proving him right.  
He’s got that predatory look in his eyes again that makes Changkyun’s gut clench and it’s all for _him_ which makes it so much fucking hotter so when Hoseok lifts off him he ignores the cold blast of air that hits his body, ignores the weird hollow feeling that spreads through his chest too, and follows him up onto his hands and knees. Hoseok props himself up against the bare sofa and tucks his shirt off, tossing it somewhere – anywhere, Changkyun couldn’t fucking care less because he’s too busy staring.

Hoseok’s beautiful. He’s hot and he’s huge but he’s fucking beautiful too, all smooth skin and soft lines and defined fucking _everything_. He looks like the models Changkyun used to sketch in those life drawing classes once upon a time, when he still thought pencils and paints were the only things you could make art with. That’s what he looks like. He looks like fucking art.

“Are you just gonna keep staring?”  
His gaze snaps up, dry swallowing when he sees the other man looking right back at him. There’s just something about the way he stares that feels like he’s burning two holes into Changkyun’s skin, like somehow, even when he looks away again, he’ll still bear the scars and for some reason it makes his pulse quicken in the base of his neck.

“Or,” Hoseok continues, tilting his head to the side, “Are you gonna be a good boy and suck my cock?”

Oh, that. Definitely fucking that.

Maybe he’s being too eager when he crawls between Hoseok’s outstretched legs. Maybe his hands shake with anticipation as he tucks his fingers around the waistband of the man’s pants and – getting a nod of permission – tugs them down. Maybe he’s a little clumsy pulling them the rest of the way off, throwing them in some direction, somewhere behind him. It doesn’t matter, any of that, because then he’s got Hoseok in front of him, naked and all for fucking him and he’s going to suck his dick for him better than anyone ever fucking has.

Fuck, Hoseok has a nice dick. They’re not attractive body parts, Changkyun’s a gay guy – he’s seen enough in his time to know they’re not the most aesthetically pleasing bits of the human body. But Hoseok’s, like the rest of him, is an exception. He’s not hard yet – not fully, but Changkyun’s going to fix that – but it rests against his leg, thick and smooth and God, it’s going to feel so fucking good when he gets it in his mouth.

He’s imagined what it will feel like enough already. All those times in the shower, fantasising about how Hoseok will taste on his tongue while he stroked his own cock and tried to stifle the noises it dragged out of him. Now he has it in front of him, waiting for him, and he’s finally going to fucking find out.

He gets down on his hands and knees slowly, deliberately – putting on a show. He doesn’t need to look up to know Hoseok’s watching his every move and yes, he’s a fucking attention whore because knowing Hoseok’s focused on him – and only him – makes him want to fucking moan. Lowering himself onto his elbows means he can’t use his hands but that doesn’t matter. He’s better with his mouth, anyway, and this way Hoseok gets to watch him blow him with his ass up, on display.

The thought pushes him forward and then he’s swallowing the head of Hoseok’s dick. He might groan, he’s not sure, he’s too busy revelling in the feeling of finally – fucking finally – having his cock in his mouth that he just wants _more_ of it. So he tilts his head, taking him deeper, and feels it twitch against the inside of his cheek. When he tightens his lips, hollowing his cheeks to suck harder as he starts to move up and down, Hoseok makes a guttural noise that Changkyun can actually _feel_ in his dick and suddenly all he wants is to hear that sound again. Over and over and fucking over.

“Look at you, Kyunnie,” Hoseok says – cursing when Changkyun flicks his tongue over the head of his dick, tasting the precum beginning to pool there. “You look so pretty with my cock in your mouth.”

Nobody, in all Changkyun’s twenty-four fucking years on this earth, has ever called him _pretty_.

Maybe that’s why hearing it now makes his dick throb so hard in his underwear that he moans around Hoseok’s cock. Or maybe it’s just because he’s a pervert and the idea of Hoseok finding him pretty while he’s got the head of his dick touching the back of his fucking throat gets him off almost as much as Hoseok making him voice every disgusting thought he has. Hoseok notices – it’d be hard not to – and Changkyun feels his hand fist in his hair.  
“You like that, don’t you? You like looking pretty for me while you lick me cock.”  
Changkyun can only whimper. Hoseok’s fingers tighten in his hair, sending tingles of pain through his scalp, and it’s so good – so, so fucking good and he’s sucking harder, faster, feeling his own drool drip onto his forearms underneath him.

When he flattens his tongue, dragging his piercing along the man’s shaft, Hoseok makes a tortured noise and tugs harder so he does it again – which gets him another ‘so fucking pretty’ and it’s even dirtier than the one before because now he must look fucking wrecked. With tears in his eyes and spit and precum and God knows what all over his face, a cock stretching his lips open while he slurps loudly on it and fuck, his ass is in the air too. And he’s so fucking turned on by it his dick is drooling unattended in his boxers and Hoseok thinks he’s _pretty_.

And, you know what? Changkyun fucking believes him.

Then Hoseok pulls him up. Drags him off his shaft by his hair and he whines because no, he wasn’t finished yet and Hoseok wasn’t finished yet and he really, really wants to feel him finish on his tongue. Hoseok chuckles at his obvious disappointment and pushes his thumb into his mouth again, hooking it open and clearly enjoying the view even though he’s drooling on his own fucking chin.  
“I was going to fuck you, Kyunnie, but if you don’t want my cock in your ass you can open up your pretty mouth again and I’ll put it back in there instead.”

Oh. Changkyun had been too distracted finally getting to wrap his lips around Hoseok’s dick to think about having it inside him, stretching him so fucking wide open he can still feel it for days after. Now, it’s _all_ he’s going to fucking think about.

“Please,” he moans and Hoseok pushes him. His head thuds against the carpet as he goes down but he doesn’t care. Hoseok is on top of him, slotting his massive body between his legs and as far as he’s concerned, he could’ve cracked his skull and he still wouldn’t have given a shit because it feels so good to wrap his legs around something – someone – so solid.

“Please what?” Hoseok prompts as if he doesn’t know exactly what he’s asking for and _Christ_ he’s going to make him say it. He’s going to make him say he wants Hoseok’s cock in his ass and then he’s going to make him _ask_ for it. Nicely. He’s going to make him say fucking pretty please and he’s sure he must look as frustrated as he feels – maybe even more – but Hoseok doesn’t take pity on him. Nope, not even when Changkyun knows he’s hard and more than fucking ready to thrust into him. The bastard just grins. Then he shifts and Changkyun gasps as the back of his hand grazes against his untouched dick in the lightest, barest hint of a fucking touch that’s not enough. Nowhere near enough. His eyelids flutter shut as the man does it again, drawing a whimper from his throat because fuck, _it’s not enough_. And Hoseok fucking knows it.

“Please what, Kyunnie?” he asks again, moving his hand away completely and Changkyun’s eyes pop open. Hoseok doesn’t put it back and he’s not going to put it back until Changkyun does what he says and his dick is dribbling so much fucking precum he can feel his underwear sticking to his thighs and who fucking cares if it’s embarrassing or shameful because it’s what he fucking wants.

“Please fuck me,” he begs – and he really, definitely _is_ begging this time because they both know he would do fucking anything to have Hoseok pounding into him right now. “Please put your fucking cock in my ass and fuck me. Please.”

It’s filthy and explicit and probably full of more curse words than Hoseok expected but it’s what Changkyun needs and if he doesn’t get fucking _something_ in his ass in the next five minutes he’s going to explode or cry. Or both.

Mercifully Hoseok seems to be finished making him wait and Changkyun would thank every fucking God he could think of if he wasn’t so busy helping Hoseok drag off his underwear – which are even worse than the first pair and completely fucking ruined.  
“Spread your legs and hold them,” Hoseok commands as soon as his ass hits the floor again and he eagerly complies and it’s only then it dawns on him that they’re in the living room and _there’s no fucking lube in the living room_.

He opens his mouth – maybe to share the thought, maybe to just cry with frustration – but Hoseok’s squeezing something on his fingers and Changkyun stares at it because that’s lube. He has lube. Where the fuck the guy got a bottle of lube from, he has absolutely no fucking idea and if he weren’t so far gone, he’d probably ask but as it is, he has exactly one thought when he sees it and it’s just ‘thank fucking God’.

“One or two?” Hoseok asks and Changkyun has to stop himself saying ‘just put your whole fucking hand in’ because he might be so horny he could probably cum just from the way Hoseok is eyeing his spread legs like some kind of goddamn dessert but this is his ass and he’d still like to be able to walk eventually when they’re finished.  
“Two,” he says, relatively reasonably. “I used my vibrator earlier; I can take two.”  
Hoseok gives a low, dangerous laugh that does just all kinds of things to Changkyun’s already molten lava insides and almost finishes the job by saying, “You’re going to have to take at least three before my cock or it’ll fucking destroy you.”

“I wouldn’t – shit,” he hisses as Hoseok, true to his word, eases two digits into him because fuck, he might still be stretched out from his vibrator but it was a few hours ago and, like the rest of him, Hoseok’s hands are fucking _big_.  
“You wouldn’t what, Kyunnie?” Hoseok asks him like he’s not fucking him open with his fingers and Changkyun feels his eyes roll into the back of his head when he slides them back out again.  
“I wouldn’t mind,” he manages before Hoseok’s fingers are back, dragging a high-pitched moan out of him. “I wouldn’t mind you d– oh Jesus – destroying me.”  
“Hmm. I don’t think that’s true, Kyunnie.”

Changkyun would protest that actually he really wouldn’t mind being ruined by Hoseok and his dick but when he opens his mouth Hoseok twists his fingers in his ass and a choked whine is all that comes out.  
“I think,” Hoseok continues, watching his handywork, “You would _love_ me to destroy your ass with my cock. I’m giving you another.”  
Then he does and Changkyun’s eyes squeeze shut of their own accord because oh _God, oh God, oh fucking God_. He grips his thighs hard enough to draw fucking blood, feeling a wet patch pooling on his stomach, and there’s no way he’s going to last when he finally gets Hoseok inside him. No fucking way.

“I think you’d stick your ass up in the air for me like a good boy,” Hoseok carries on, words washing over Changkyun’s prickling skin, “And spread your cheeks so I could see how fucking tight you are. And then you’d beg me to fuck you. Wide. Fucking. Open.”  
He punctuates the last three words with hard thrusts of his fingers and Changkyun’s back arches and _fuck_ he does want it, he wants Hoseok to push him into a mattress and shove his cock inside his ass until he splits fucking open so he nods frantically – dimly noticing a bead of sweat slide down the side of his face into his hair.

“Yes, God, yes, I w-” he cuts off, cursing, when Hoseok turns his head and sinks his teeth into his leg without warning, lapping his tongue over the spot. “I want that.”  
A muscle in Hoseok’s jaw ticks. “Of course you do. And maybe sometime I’ll give it to you but if I break you now, how am I gonna fuck you again?”  
That’s it. That’s really all Changkyun can fucking cope with.  
“Your dick, I want – God _please_ give me your dick now. I can take it. I can. Please just fucking put it in.”

Hoseok’s eyes flick to his face then and for one horrible, terrifying second Changkyun thinks he’s going to refuse but he doesn’t. He nods, pulling his fingers free and Changkyun bites his lip against the complaints bubbling up in his throat at being so goddamn empty because he just has to wait. Just wait.

He does. Even though it takes Hoseok fucking years to massage the lube into his dick and slide the condom on and line the head up with Changkyun’s asshole and his legs are shaking with the strain of holding them up and there’s sweat sliding down his chest. The hand gripping his hip is a silent warning to just stay _still_ though so he does. And when Hoseok pushes into him, slow and deliberate and _good_ , he’s just so glad that he did.

Hoseok was fucking right when he said he’d need at least three fingers; he should’ve probably taken four. It’s not that it hurts – it doesn’t – it’s just that it’s been a fucking while since he had something in his ass that wasn’t his own fingers or battery operated and Hoseok is fucking thick and even if he wasn’t it’d be a different sort of stretch anyway. A good stretch but still definitely a _stretch_.

“Fucking hell,” Hoseok says when he bottoms out, sounding almost as strained as Changkyun feels. “Jesus, Kyunnie, you’re tight.”  
Changkyun makes a noise that could probably pass as an agreement and maybe that’s what makes Hoseok stop where he is or maybe it’s because Changkyun’s gripping his own legs so tightly his fingertips are turning that weird yellow-white colour. Whatever it is, he stops and leans down to litter sloppy kisses over his neck, his shoulders, his chest.

“You okay? Need me to pull out?” he murmurs under Changkyun’s ear and Changkyun shudders at the way his voice vibrates over his skin  
“No, I can take it, I just – I needed to…adjust,” he replies. Then he releases his legs – his hands were going fucking numb and he wants to be able to touch Hoseok anyway – and wraps them around the other man’s waist. “I’m good now.”

Apparently, that’s all Hoseok needs to hear because the words are barely out of Changkyun’s mouth before he pulls out and – mouth still attached to his neck – thrusts back in with a force that makes Changkyun see actual fucking stars. Then he does it again. And again and fucking again and it’s glaringly fucking obvious that Hoseok doesn’t just have a thick cock, he also knows how to _use_ it. He bites down on Changkyun’s shoulder hard enough to make him arch up, fingernails scraping down the other man’s back, and he loves the sparks of pain it sends tingling through him and he’s close. He’s been hard for so fucking long and Hoseok’s been teasing him for fucking ages and Hoseok’s cock is hitting deeper with every fucking thrust and God it just feels so good he might not even need Hoseok to touch his dick to get him off.

He doesn’t want to cum yet, though, so he slides his hands into Hoseok’s hair and tugs his head up – wanting his mouth. It’s clumsy. Hoseok is still fucking him with a rhythm that drives him hard into the carpet and they’re both panting and Changkyun’s vaguely aware he’s making a steady stream of pornographic noises but still, they’re kissing. They’re kissing and it’s great and they’re _kissing_.

“Spread your legs wider,” Hoseok says into his mouth and he does even though his muscles ache because Hoseok knows what he’s doing and this time when he pulls out, he pulls out all the way and Changkyun feels a string of lube trail out of him onto the carpet.

When he pushes back in it’s deeper. Much fucking deeper. It’s so deep Changkyun moans loudly with his tongue still stuck in Hoseok’s mouth and Hoseok sucks it sloppily, which is every bit as gross as it is hot, and then his dick catches something that makes Changkyun arch up so violently – he almost throws him off altogether.  
“Again,” he gasps. “Jesus, fuck, do that again.”  
Hoseok takes a chunk out of his bottom lip and he moans again. “What, this?”  
He thrusts again, adjusting the angle and this time he hits it straight fucking on and he might actually scream because holy mother fucking God yes, _that_.

“I didn’t hear a please in there, Kyunnie,” Hoseok tells him, his punishment arriving in the form of a shallow stroke that barely even touches the inside of his ass and he whines in frustration. Fuck, he may even be crying now, he has no fucking clue. All he knows is he needs Hoseok to hit that fucking spot again and he needs it fucking _yesterday_.

“Please,” he begs, lifting his hips higher. “Please, please, _please_ fucking do that again.”  
Hoseok groans with satisfaction and gives him what he wants. Hard. Again and fucking again and maybe it’s too much actually because Changkyun feels like his body’s full of molten fucking lava, head stuffed with candyfloss or something equally confused and fluffy. He can’t think straight. Shit, he can’t even _speak_ properly because Hoseok’s found the perfect angle and he’s fucking him like he’s trying to sending him through the goddamn floor.

“I’m c-oh fuck, I’m close,” he pushes out as Hoseok gives him another one of those toe-curling neck bites and Hoseok lifts his head to look at him, which almost sends Changkyun over the fucking edge because the sight of him with his face flushed, sweat dripping down the veins throbbing in his neck, and just looking so fucking _dirty_ is the hottest thing Changkyun’s ever seen in his goddamn life.  
“Cum, then,” Hoseok says and wraps his hand so suddenly around Changkyun’s cock he shrieks a little bit – throwing his head back against the carpet – and Hoseok groans. “Fuck, you look so fucking hot like this, Kyunnie.”  
“Hoseok,” he moans because he really can’t manage anything else when the other man starts jerking him off, fast and hard in time with his thrusts. It’s a miracle he can say fucking anything at all.

Hoseok curses, his hips snapping forward and slamming against Changkyun’s pelvis hard enough to fucking bruise. “Say that again.”  
“Hoseok,” he pants immediately, moaning when it makes Hoseok’s fist tighten around his cock. “Hoseok, Hoseok, Hos- _fuuuck_ Hoseok, I’m gonna c–”

Hoseok swallows the rest of the word, drawing him into a kiss that’s more panting and grunting than actual kissing, and his tongue piercing catches on Hoseok’s tooth and wet, squishing noises fill the air around them and Changkyun can feel the carpet rubbing him raw with every movement but everything is perfect and his gut clenches, his balls tightening – 

Changkyun cums.

Hoseok breathes in his own whimpered name as Changkyun shakes underneath him. His cum paints both of their stomachs, spreading between their bodies because Hoseok's still fucking him and Changkyun’s brain shuts down completely and all he can do is keep fucking holding on. He keeps saying Hoseok’s name too, chanting it like a fucking mantra, and then he feels Hoseok tense against him – his muscles going rigid – and he groans so low and gravelly the sound reverberates through the fucking floor.

Then he shatters and Changkyun, already in bits beneath him, catches every last splinter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it took me 35 years to finally get around to posting this today but I'm hoping Changkyun with a tongue piercing makes up for it.


	5. Baking bread and other love languages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: there is a brief mention of dieting in this chapter - just one sentence and it's just a contextual comment but please be aware the topic comes up! I appreciate anybody taking the time to read, comment on, give kudos to or even glance at this fic and I want you guys to be comfortable

“Does it still hurt?” Hoseok asks later.

Much later. At least eight litres of a water and three power naps later, when Changkyun’s back on planet earth and not, you know, hearing colours and seeing sounds.

Changkyun glares at him over his shoulder, his arms folded under his chin and his legs stretched out behind him. It’s the only way he can sit without pressing on the four fucking feet of friction burns now running the length of his back.  
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Hoseok says, flashing him an apologetic smile from a safe distance on the carpet, where he’s been exiled until further notice. Or until Changkyun’s top layer of skin has grown back.

Changkyun sighs.

“The ointment stuff helped a bit. And the aloe,” he admits because Hoseok _was_ very sorry when he went to wash his back after their rough and tumble in the living room and found it a deep, unflattering shade of pomegranate. “It’ll probably be fine once it scabs over.”  
“Scabs over?” Hoseok echoes, visibly horrified and Changkyun rolls his eyes.  
“My entire epidermis is buried in the fibres of that carpet, I’m pretty sure it’ll scab over. Should be completely fine in, like, a week though. Friction burns are only first degree.”  
Hoseok raises an eyebrow at him. “You sure seem to know a lot about rug burns. Does this happen to you a lot or are you a medical student or something?”

Changkyun laughs. “Seriously? I’m not even a _student_ student.”  
“Oh, so it’s the first one, then.”  
He deflects the pillow Changkyun chucks at him easily, laughing, and Changkyun hides a grin. How’s he supposed to uphold his reputation as a sarcastic piece of shit if he breaks into a smile every time Hoseok giggles?

“Okay, seriously though,” Hoseok says, resting his elbow on the sofa beside Changkyun’s leg and propping his head up. “What do you do?”  
“I’m a tattoo artist,” Changkyun answers even though he has no idea why the other man would be interested and Hoseok’s eyes widen.  
“A tattoo artist? You’re shitting me.”  
Changkyun huffs, defensive. “No need to be so fucking surprised.”  
“No, shit, that’s not what– I guess, it makes sense since you’re – you know. I mean, you have a tongue piercing and shit but I just…really? You’re a tattoo artist?”  
“Yep. That’s what I do. Well, what I used to do. Now I just lie around doodling designs instead and hope it’s safe to open back up when lockdown finishes. What about you? What do you do?”

“Nothing anywhere _near_ as cool as that.”  
“Oh, come on, you look like Michelangelo’s fucking David – you could, I don’t fucking know, knit hats for kittens and you’d still be cool. Actually, that’s a bad example, that sounds like a bangin’ job.”  
“Bangin’?” Hoseok repeats with a snort. “What is this 1993?”  
Changkyun groans. “Fuck off, oh my God.”  
“Sorry, bro, are we gonna go pick up some honeys later and hit a groovy–”  
“Die.” He glares at him, cheeks flaming, but he feels a grin trying to lift his lips despite himself. “Just tell me what you do for a living, you asshole.”

“Okay, okay, I give in. I’m a personal trainer.”  
Changkyun stares at him. “A personal trainer? You’re a personal trainer and you think that’s not a cool fucking job? That’s, like, one down from bodybuilding.”  
“Actually, I used to do that too,” Hoseok says, like it’s really no big deal, “But it kind of wore on me, you know? Having to watch every single thing I ate right before competitions, being so focused on what I looked like – it takes a lot out of you and I couldn’t keep doing it anymore. Just wasn’t for me, I guess, but I liked the training and there was an opening at the gym I went to and since the owner knew me from the competitions, he offered it to me. Now, here I am.”

“Helping other people train, instead?” Changkyun finishes and Hoseok smiles.  
“Exactly.” He sighs. “I’m with you on the whole ‘please let it be safe for us to open after lockdown’ thing, though. Not a lot of personal training you can do from two metres away and spritzing the equipment with alcohol every thirty seconds probably isn’t going to cut it.”  
“I’m sure they’ll figure it out. In the meantime, we’re gonna have to start baking bread. I couldn’t find any fucking _anywhere_ \- not even the ‘free from’ stuff that tastes like sadness.”

“You want us to bake bread?” Hoseok frowns. “Don’t you have to have, like, flour and shit for that?”  
“Yes, which is why when I couldn’t find any bread, I bought ‘flour and shit’ instead,” Changkyun replies drily, yelping when Hoseok pokes his side.  
“Okay, you mean little man, let’s make some bread then.”  
He starts to get up and Changkyun panics. “What? _Now_ ?”  
“Why not?” Hoseok grins. “You got someplace to be?”  
“Smartass,” Changkyun mutters but he allows himself to be pulled off the sofa all the same because, well, what else is he going to fucking do?

“How do you even bake bread?” Hoseok asks, still holding Changkyun’s hand as he leads him to the kitchen.  
“How the fuck should I know?”  
Hoseok pauses, turning to look at him. “Wait, you don’t know? We’re going to bake bread and neither of us know how? Exactly what’s your plan here?”

“I’m a millennial. So obviously my plan is to just google it and hope for the best. If we get lucky, Susanne from England will have a step by step recipe for how to make the perfect loaf all ready and waiting on her blog. If we get really lucky, she’ll have a whole YouTube tutorial and we won’t even have to trawl through a fuck-tonne of paragraphs on how important bread has always been to her and how it saved her life when she was three.”

They get really lucky.

Sure, there are some complications – like the fact that they don’t have a mixing bowl or a rolling pin – but they sterilise the shit out of the boat-like dish Changkyun and Jooheon always dig out for movie night popcorn and then they’re away. Hoseok proves his muscles are functional as well as decorative when Caroline, stay at home Mom of two with a penchant for matching flowery crockery and joke aprons, tells them to knead the absolute shit out of the dough. Not that she says those exact words but Changkyun has a strong feeling she would if she wasn’t worried about being demonetised. There’s a snarky sense of humour hiding behind her ‘aloe you vera much’ apron, he just knows there is.

“Do you wish you were stuck here with Jooheon?” Hoseok asks when they’re sat on the kitchen floor, waiting for the dough to rest for the 300th time because apparently getting such a beat down wears it out. Changkyun, who’d been drifting a little bit here and a little bit there, falls back into his body and blinks.

“What?”  
“I don’t know.” Hoseok shakes his head. “I was just thinking maybe it’s weird for you being stuck here with me. Maybe you wish it was Jooheon instead or something.”

It’s a fair question. It’d make sense that being locked in the apartment twenty-four-seven with a guy he’d barely known two months would be a little uncomfortable and it was, really, but that was mostly because the guy in question kept doing shirtless push-ups in the living room and it was driving Changkyun out of his fucking mind with horniness. Now?

Now it’s…

An image of Hoseok pops into his head uninvited. Of when Changkyun found him in the middle of the night, on his hands and knees, gathering up the broken shards of yellow ceramic that used to be Changkyun’s favourite mug – the butt ugly one the size of a goldfish bowl with chipped cat ears and whiskers like cheese strings. Hoseok broke it maybe a week after he moved in, back when they still thought he’d only be here for a couple of months and even if he wasn’t, they’d barely see each other anyway.

There was Changkyun’s favourite mug smashed to fucking smithereens on the shitty lino and when Hoseok looked up at him, full of apologies and maybe even tears, all he could say was, “It was ugly, anyways.”

“Kyunnie?”  
Hoseok’s voice drags him back to the present and he blinks, the kitchen opening back out around him. Hoseok’s looking at him, probably concerned he’s just been slack-jawed staring into space for forty-five minutes, and for some reason it makes him look down at his hands.

“Well, it’s only a few weeks,” Changkyun says instead of answering because he’s a fucking coward.

And he _is_ a fucking coward because even though it’s a fair question and a fair answer would be yes, he would prefer to be holed up with his roommate, who he’s known almost since the womb and not his roommate’s unfamiliar brother he’d laid eyes on briefly at some birthday celebration, somewhere. It’s a fair answer but it’s not the _right_ one and somehow what he actually wants to tell the other man feels like it’ll give too much away. He has no fucking idea why or even what the hell it’d be revealing but the thought makes his chest so tight it’s hard to breathe through.

Hoseok’s looking at him weird, anyway. He knows this because now he’s staring avidly at the oven instead of the black varnish chipping off his fingernails and he can see Hoseok’s gaze in the glass and it’s on him. Hoseok opens his mouth and that vice gripping Changkyun’s chest squeezes tighter and he says – 

Nothing.

He says nothing because the alarm they set to wake the dough starts screaming through the apartment and Hoseok has to scramble to shut his phone up before they wake the whole building baking bread at 01:23.

“Holy shit,” Hoseok exclaims, eyes rounding out as he looks at the cling-film covered bowl on the counter. “Are we even gonna be able to fit this in the tin?”

Just like that, the conversation disappears off to whatever secret pocket of time and space midnight talks on kitchen floors are kept in. Changkyun gets up to poke the mutant dough and says it must be a grower, not a shower and they’re themselves again and everything is back to normal.

That’s what Changkyun tells himself, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is basically just a 'tattoo artist and florist' au but like...slightly to the left.


	6. Honey, I would dye for you

'I’ve just had the best fucking idea' is the kind of announcement which, when made any time after midnight, is always followed up with something a) stupid, b) _really_ stupid or c) criminal.

Thankfully for Changkyun – who isn’t thrilled with the idea of wearing neon orange for the rest of his life – Hoseok re-emerges thirty seconds later brandishing what looks like an entire fucking bag of hair dye and an alarmingly industrial tub of lightener.

“Hair dye,” Changkyun says as Hoseok, grinning from ear to ear, tries to pull the sheets off him. “Your ‘best fucking idea’ is _hair dye_?”  
“Yes and if you don’t get out of bed, I’m doing it fuchsia leopard print. Come _on_.”  
Hoseok gives the duvet another tug, his lips turning into a pout that makes something crack inside Changkyun – something he hopes isn’t important but has a terrible feeling it might be – and he caves. Not because of the pouting. He’s just curious about what colours Hoseok’s got, that’s all.

“For the record,” Changkyun says as Hoseok leads him into the bathroom, so excited he’s practically skipping, “I would rock the shit out of fuchsia leopard print hair.”  
“You would b– _ohh_ , I know exactly what colour you’re having. And no, it’s not that. I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to paint leopard spots on your head.”  
Changkyun watches warily as Hoseok dumps the contents of the bag into the sink. “Do I not get a say in this?”  
“Pfft, where’s the fun in that?”

He must look roughly as convinced as he feels – which is not fucking convinced at all, actually – because Hoseok nudges his elbow. “Come on, Kyunnie, it’ll be fun. We’re in lockdown, it’s not like anyone’s gonna see it anyway. Live a little.”  
“And your version of living a little is making moderate to terrible hair care mistakes, is it?”  
“Yep. It’s also my go-to when I’m sad or drunk. Or sometimes just when I’m bored.”  
Changkyun raises his eyebrows. “I think we should talk about you using shitty box dyes as emotional support.”  
“I’m bisexual,” Hoseok says like that explains everything and, well, maybe it does – Changkyun wouldn’t know, he’s kissed exactly one girl in his life and afterwards they both came to the conclusion they were definitely, 100% homosexual – but Changkyun doesn’t have a chance to press the issue because then Hoseok’s nudging him towards the bath and he has to concentrate on not falling into it.

“Sit,” he tells him and Changkyun does, even though the edge of the bath – which probably hasn’t been used since, like, 1971 – digs into his thighs at a weird angle and they’ll be numb in fucking minutes.  
“Crap, hold on,” Hoseok mutters. “I forgot the Vaseline. Two seconds.”  
“Vaseline?” Changkyun echoes but Hoseok’s already disappeared.

_Vaseline?_

“What the fuck have I got myself into?” he asks the empty room. The room doesn’t reply, obviously; taps and toothbrushes aren’t exactly known for being talkative but it’s fine because Hoseok reappears holding what is probably the biggest fucking tub of Vaseline Changkyun has ever seen in his fucking life and suddenly he has more _pressing_ concerns.

His worries – and fears, there are definitely some fucking fears in there – must show on his face because Hoseok bursts out laughing.  
“Relax, Kyunnie, it’s for your face. See?” He pops the lid off and mimes rubbing it around his hairline. “It’s just so I don’t stain your skin when I put the colour on.”  
Changkyun’s face heats up. “Oh.”  
“Your fucking face, my God. I do still have lube, you know, I’m not just gonna start greasing up all of a sudden.”  
“I know that,” Changkyun argues even though he didn’t at all and he definitely was worried they’d started rationing out the lube for some tragic and terrible reason.

Shaking his head and grinning – the bastard – Hoseok leans down to pass him the tub. Then, while he’s distracted staring at the half-empty contents and wondering exactly how many times the guy’s been sad, drunk or bored, Hoseok kisses him. It’s one of those soft, sweet, ‘just because’ kisses that Changkyun’s experienced maybe three times in his life and God, it makes him feel…

_Something._

Oh no.

“Cute,” Hoseok murmurs when he pulls back and Changkyun has to look away.  
“Shut up,” he mutters.  
“Still cute. A little mean but still cute.”  
Changkyun slaps his chest half-heartedly and groans. “God, fuck _off_.”  
“Okay, very mean,” Hoseok laughs and his breath washes over Changkyun’s face in a way that he should definitely find disgusting and definitely doesn’t. “Very, very mean but still cute, sorry.”

“Christ,” he sighs, surrendering. “Just shut up and mix the fucking bleach.”  
Hoseok practically beams. “Really? You’re gonna let me do it?”  
“Why the hell not? If I go bald, I go bald.”  
“That’s the spirit,” Hoseok says cheerfully and goes about opening up boxes and tubs with the practiced ease of a man who seems to have a dye for every emotion.

Changkyun tries very hard not to breathe for the next forty-five minutes. He has no idea what’s in the shit Hoseok’s smothers all over his head – fucking Clorox, he can only assume – but it makes his eyes water and his scalp tingle and every time he opens his mouth, he can feel it seeping into his vital organs. He’s so relieved when Hoseok announces he can wash it the fuck off, he forgets to pay attention to what colour the other man’s chosen and by the time he’s perched back on the bath, Hoseok’s already slapping it on his hair.

That’s why, when they’ve gone through another round of waiting, rinsing and waiting again, and Changkyun hasn’t been able to feel his legs for so long he’s written them off as a lost cause – he’s completely fucking unprepared when Hoseok tugs him up to look in the bathroom mirror.

“It’s pink,” is all he can say.

“Yep,” Hoseok replies. “It’ll look better in the daylight but what do you think? Like it?”

Actually, yeah. He kind of really _does_. Yes, it’s pink – no two ways about that – but it’s not the neon fuchsia he’d been bracing himself for on the off-chance Hoseok decided to make good on his threats and surprise him. It’s the kind of reddish, purple-y, sort of pink, sort of not colour you get when you toss a blueberry in a banana smoothie and as weird and _completely_ uncomplimentary as that sounds, it looks fucking fantastic.

And he loves it.

“Yeah,” he answers. “I do.”

They lock eyes in the mirror and this time he doesn’t try and avoid Hoseok’s gaze. Time slips past, disjointed and fluid, and he’s vaguely aware of the towel still hanging over his shoulders, of the empty boxes laid out on the sink in front of him, but he can feel something shifting in the air between them that _holds_ him there and he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to.

So he waits.

A moment, maybe two, and then Hoseok’s hands are on him. It’s only his waist and he’s still wearing his shirt so he can’t _feel_ it the way he wants but it’s a start. A start and only the fucking beginning according to the look in Hoseok’s eyes, which shallows out his breathing better than even a hand on his fucking dick could.

“How much do you like it?” Hoseok breathes into his neck and God he’s good at this. So, so good at this. He hasn’t even touched his bare skin and Changkyun’s already leaning into him, hanging on his every fucking word like white on fucking rice, and loving every single second of it.

“This much?” Hoseok prompts and Changkyun shakes his head because no, it’s not enough. Not nearly fucking enough.  
“More,” he breathes. “Definitely more.”  
“Really? Hmm, what about this?”

Changkyun’s head falls back against Hoseok’s shoulder when he slides his palms under his shirt, enjoying the cold fingers on his skin maybe a little _too_ much, actually, but it doesn’t matter because he’s got Hoseok’s full attention and he’s touching him. He’s touching him and he’s breathing into his neck and Changkyun can feel every inch of the hard body pressed up against his back and it’s great, it really is, but it’s not what he wants.

“More,” he says again. “Fuck, Hoseok, please I need more.”  
Maybe Hoseok notices the desperate tone in his voice because he pauses. Changkyun feels his gaze on him in the mirror again, just for a brief, heavy second, and then he’s fucking pulling away and oh God, _why_ is he pulling away – he doesn’t want him to pull –  
“Relax, Kyunnie,” Hoseok tells him in _that_ voice and amazingly he does. Immediately, like he’s been fucking hypnotised or something and maybe there’s some kind of drug in Hoseok’s bodywash, he has no idea, but whatever it is, it’s fucking working.

Hoseok nudges him, turning him around, and Changkyun goes gladly because looking at Hoseok in a mirror is no substitute for looking at him directly and this way he can even kiss him. He doesn’t, though. When he faces Hoseok, he finds him studying him with an intensity that makes every neurone in his fucking body light up like a damn Christmas tree and he decides that, actually, he’ll wait. He has a feeling he’s going to want to hear _exactly_ what Hoseok says next.

“Do you trust me?” he asks and, well, that’s not what Changkyun was expecting but he nods anyway.  
“Yeah. Yeah, I do, why?”  
“I want to try something…but it’s only gonna work if you trust me.”  
Changkyun would probably trust Hoseok with his fucking life at this point but that’s a thought for another day, along with all those other Hoseok related thoughts he’s been ignoring. The ones that make his chest twinge in ways he doesn’t want to examine too closely. That’s not what Hoseok’s asking right now, anyway. At least, Changkyun pretty sure it’s not.

“Safe word?” he asks, answering without really answering, and a muscle in Hoseok’s jaw jumps as he nods.  
“You pick. You’ll be the one using it.”  
Changkyun’s 80% sure he won’t be, actually, because when it comes to Hoseok he’s realising he wants every fucking thing the man will give him and then some. The reasonable, logical part of his mind with braincells that are still functioning independently of his dick and the really nice fog he gets whenever Hoseok uses _that one voice_ , knows it’d be stupid not to have a safety net, though, so he forces himself to think.

“Red,” he says after a pause that’s probably _far_ too long to come up with something so fucking obvious but, in his defence, he’s is at full capacity wondering exactly what hell Hoseok has in mind and why it needs a safe word.  
“Red, amber, green?” Hoseok checks and he nods, shrugging.  
“Easiest to remember. And unless your thing involves some kind of twister game, it should be fine.”

Instead of answering – and, really, what is there to answer about that, anyway – Hoseok tilts his jaw up with a finger and kisses him. Man, Hoseok’s a good kisser. He’s good at fucking everything, actually, but he’s got a way with his mouth that makes you think maybe you could do this forever and it’s so addictive, Changkyun thinks he might want to try. So, when Hoseok leans back and strokes a couple of wayward pink hairs out of his eyes, he has to swallow a noise of disappointment. Hoseok chuckles because of course, he notices – he seems to have some kind of fucking radar for this kind of thing – and says:

“Don't worry, Kyunnie. We’re just getting started.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's not that I have feelings for him, it's just that I dream of running away to a woodland cottage together, where we spend the rest of our days growing pumpkins and making sweet love in front of the fireplace" - Changkyun, since approximately chapter 4


	7. Things that go bump in the night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up everyone things are about to get...interesting

They go to Changkyun’s room.

He left the window open so it’s colder than Dante seems to think the ninth circle of hell is and they have to step over about a million stray sketches the wind must’ve blown off his desk just to get inside, but at least there’s a bed. His bed, specifically, not the one Hoseok’s sleeping on because it’s Jooheon’s and just…no. In so many ways, no.

Hoseok changes as soon as they walk through the door. His gaze sharpens, surveying the room like he’s looking for something in particular and Changkyun doubts it’s a piece of home décor because when he finds it, whatever it is, he smiles. The kind of smile that makes Changkyun’s heartbeat match the rhythm of a fucking hummingbirds. Not the kind of smile you reserve for a really nice bedside lamp.

He doesn’t get a chance to ask what, exactly, he’s smiling at because then Hoseok’s hands are on his shirt and he’s lifting it.  
“Arms,” he says, simply, and he might as well have said ‘pretty please with a cherry on top’ with how fast Changkyun raises them. Who cares? If Hoseok wants the shirt off then the shirt’s coming off. Besides, the more naked _he_ gets, the closer they get to _Hoseok_ being naked and he really, really fucking wants Hoseok to be naked. Almost as much as he wants to know just what the fuck it is he was looking for and how exactly it relates to red, amber, and green.

“You’re so well behaved,” Hoseok observes, pleased, when the rest of Changkyun’s clothes join his shirt on the carpet seconds later and Changkyun feels his face flush. “Let’s see if you can keep that up. Get on the bed.”

Obviously, Changkyun does.

“On all fours, Kyunnie. Hold onto the headboard and don’t turn around,” Hoseok says when he starts to sit down and he almost stops breathing.  
Holy shit. Is he going to do what Changkyun thinks he’s going to do? Hoseok looks at him, cocking an eyebrow because he’s frozen on the spot, and yep, Hoseok is going to do _exactly_ what he thinks he’s going to do. _Jesus fucking Christ_.

“Kyunnie.”

It’s a warning. A very quiet warning but still definitely a warning and it gets him moving again. To the top of the bed where he wraps his fingers around the metal bars of his own headboard because even though it’s so fucking cold in here his nipples are hard as fucking diamonds and his legs protest when he pulls himself onto his knees – he wants it. All of it. And whatever comes next.

“Good boy,” is his reward and his knuckles whiten against the bars because he wants to turn around. God, he wants to turn around so fucking badly but he can’t because Hoseok told him not to and he’s already promised to behave.

So, he stays still. Even when he hears Hoseok’s footsteps crossing the room. Even when he hears rustling and a metallic clink that seems weirdly familiar but distant at the same time. Even when he _feels_ him, behind him – just fucking standing there branding his back with his eyes – Changkyun still doesn’t fucking move and it’s terrifying. It’s really fucking terrifying because what if Hoseok doesn’t touch him? What if he just fucking leaves him there, completely fucking naked, holding on to his own damn headboard for dear life, skin prickling with need and want and _need_ – and that’s it?

He won’t; Changkyun trusts him. It’s the only thing that stops him backing out – turning around and dragging all his clothes back on and suggesting a game of, God, Cluedo or something because Hoseok asked if he trusted him and he does. Hoseok won’t just leave him shaking against the headboard as some kind of sick fucking joke and he knows that, he _knows_ that.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t almost weep with fucking relief when Hoseok’s hand lands on his back though.

“Fuck, you’re so obedient,” Hoseok says, voice right next to Changkyun’s ear, and he jumps like a startled fucking rabbit. “Relax, Kyunnie, I’ve got you. Hold still.”  
Changkyun wants to snap back that he _is_ fucking holding still and he’s _been_ fucking holding still but the words die in his throat – which is probably just as well, actually – as Hoseok leans over him. He’s naked, Changkyun realises, his dick twitching to life. Or at the very least, he’s shirtless because Changkyun can feel his bare skin against his back and even though his carpet burn cleared up days ago, it’s lights him on fucking _fire_

Which is why he doesn’t notice the belt Hoseok’s holding until he’s winding it around Changkyun’s wrists.

“Holy shit,” he breathes – watching with nervous fascination as Hoseok threads the leather, of his own goddamn belt, through the silver buckle and _pulls_. “Jesus, f- have you done this before?”

He must have, Changkyun reasons, because he tightens it so exactly fucking perfectly around his wrists it makes Changkyun’s breath catch and his body tingle. God, Hoseok was right. Hoseok was so fucking right, he _does_ love this. He loves it so fucking much he’s getting hard already and, seriously, he _must_ have done this before. Then Hoseok gives a couple of experimental tugs like he’s making sure Changkyun’s trapped where he is and surprises the shit out of him with a ‘no.’

“Seriously? Never?”  
“Never,” Hoseok assures him – stroking a thumb over Changkyun’s bound hands. His ring matches the belt buckle, Changkyun notices. “I wanted to try tying you up as soon as I had you in my fucking lap but I had no idea your headboard would be so perfect.”  
Hoseok wraps a hand around one of the bars and squeezes experimentally but Changkyun’s too busy fucking reeling at the knowledge Hoseok’s been wanting to do this since, what, two weeks ago to pay any actual attention.

“You…thought about this?”  
“About tying you up? All the fucking time, Kyunnie.”  
Changkyun closes his eyes. His breathing’s heavier now, he can hear it and maybe he can even hear his heartbeat too – too fast and too loud. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter at all because Hoseok’s been fantasising about having him naked and tied up like this and now he _is_ naked and tied up like this and there is nothing else except this moment right now. With them and this headboard and this fucking belt.

“What,” Changkyun says and he’s panting a bit, “What did you think about?”  
“Why? Do you want me to tell you, Kyunnie? Do you want me to tell you all the dirty things I fantasised about doing to you while you were all tied up for me, like this?”  
Lips find his ear and his eyes pop open, his whole body shuddering so hard he almost loses his balance. Hoseok’s hands are there, though, steadying him, holding him in place. Blazing a path over his already burning skin. He’s fucking everywhere all of a sudden, his fingers brushing over Changkyun’s back and his neck and his nipples and _oh fuck_ his cock.

“Lube?” Hoseok says suddenly and Changkyun just about has the wherewithal to tell him it’s in the bedside drawer before Hoseok’s grazing his dick again and he couldn’t manage a cohesive thought even if he wanted to. Rustling fills the air as Hoseok grabs for the bottle and Changkyun’s brain whites out because _yes_ , he’s going to have something fucking inside him.

“Do you want that, Kyunnie?”  
It takes a minute for Changkyun to realise exactly what Hoseok is referring to, so caught up in the anticipation of getting Hoseok’s cock he has a hard time backtracking, but when he does, the thought makes him lick his lips.  
“Yes, fuck, yes I do,” he groans – sucking air through his teeth when Hoseok’s hand closes around the back of his neck and squeezes _just_ enough. “I mean, please, Hoseok. Please can you tell m-”

The rest of the sentence is lost to what’s honestly almost a scream because Hoseok chooses that exact moment to stick a finger in his ass without even a fucking heads up and _holy mother of Jesus fucking Christ_. The restraints dig into his hands and he didn’t even realise he was pulling but that feels almost as good as the finger fucking him open and, God, this is exactly what he fucking wants. This is what he needs.

“I thought about playing with you, Kyunnie,” Hoseok breathes into his ear and oh, that’s even fucking better. “I was going to make you wait, all naked and spread out for me.”  
“While I was t- – tied up?”  
He pulls his finger back out and it must be to get more lube because when he thrusts back into him there’s two and it makes a wet, sticky sound usually reserved for sloppy porn and hard fucking against walls and it’s so fucking good it makes Changkyun want to push back against it. He can’t, though, because his hands are literally fucking tied and he’s completely at Hoseok’s mercy so he just has to hold on and take it.

“Uh-huh,” Hoseok continues like he hasn’t got two fingers knuckle deep in his ass. “Then I’d take my time with you. Tease you until you’re crying and begging me to touch your cock. Shit, I was going to do that today but seeing you like this…I just can’t wait.”  
_Thank fucking God for that_ , Changkyun thinks as Hoseok scissors his fingers and he almost blacks the fuck out against the headboard. Hoseok likes to tease. Hoseok likes to tease almost as much as he likes Changkyun use his manners when he asks for a dick in his mouth and Changkyun would be lying if he said he didn’t like it too but today he’s impatient and horny and unsettled and if Hoseok made him wait while he was tied up, blind to everything behind him, he’d probably actually, genuinely _cry_.

Hoseok mutters a long, drawn out expletive when he adds a third finger and Changkyun would agree if he wasn’t so busy fucking drowning in endorphins. He’s so glad – so, so fucking glad – he’s had Hoseok’s dick in his ass so many times already because three fingers is still a bit of a stretch but he’s already acclimatised to the feel of them inside him and he doesn’t just want more, he’s ready for it.

“I want your cock Hoseok. Please,” he pushes out and Hoseok curses again, harsher this time, which does absolutely nothing to stave off his budding climax so he grips the headboard so hard he can feel it biting into his palms and grits his teeth.  
“Please,” he says again, more desperate this time. “Fuck, Hoseok, I’m gonna cum and I don’t want to until I have your cock in me so _please_ just fucking _fuck_ me.”

Hoseok sucks in a breath. “Jesus.”  
“Please. Pretty fucking please,” Changkyun half-sobs and Hoseok pulls his fingers free, leaving him clenching around nothing, which is almost worse than never having anything in there in the first place. It’s fine though, because he can hear that weird squeezing sound of liquid being forced out of a bottle and he never thought he’d be so happy to hear somebody lubing up behind him but it’s like music to his fucking ears right now. He forgot to tell Hoseok the condoms where in the bedside table, too, but it’s okay – he’s on it and then he’s smoothing a palm down Changkyun’s spine, his thumb ring scraping his skin, and it’s happening. It’s fucking happening.

“Spread your knees a bit, Kyunnie.”  
It’s a struggle – he’s been holding this position for a while now and his hips are going to be out of commission for fucking weeks after this but Hoseok holds his waist steady and he does it, he plants his knees wider on the mattress. Hoseok’s fingers close around his hip and oh God, there he is and there’s his cock rubbing against Changkyun’s ass and he’s fucking putting it _in_ and – 

Changkyun buries his teeth in his forearm and _yells_.

“Red, amber or green?” Hoseok asks him when he’s quiet again. He’s stopped just shy of all the way in, his hands on Changkyun’s hips, and even though his voice is strained with what is probably the fucking _overwhelming_ urge to move, he stays there. “Kyunnie, red, amber or green?”  
“Green,” Changkyun answers when he lifts his head and he really is green. Honestly. It’s just a lot with the belt and the being tied up – maybe more than he was really expecting – and he probably should’ve let Hoseok prep him longer because three fingers for half a minute isn’t really enough to take a cock as thick as Hoseok’s but he still wants it. He still wants this. He just needs…a second.

“Are you sure?” Hoseok asks, the concern in his voice doing something to Changkyun’s insides that he brushes away to unpack another time when he’s less horny and naked and full of cock. Or maybe never, actually, because he’s a fucking coward and it’s terrifying.

“I’m sure,” he replies. “I’m really sure just – please can you put the rest of it in? Slowly?”  
“Anything you want, Kyunnie,” is Hoseok’s unnecessarily sweet reply and true to his word, he is slow when he pushes the rest of the way in. Slow and deliberate and careful and Changkyun can feel every single centimetre of his cock and it’s a stretch, it’s a fucking stretch, but he can breathe properly this time and it doesn’t feel like _so much_.

So when he feels Hoseok’s hips hit his ass, he pushes back. A tiny groan leaves his throat and he arches his back, grinding little circles against the other man’s pelvis and that’s better. That’s it. That’s the feeling.  
“Okay,” he says, breathy. “Okay, you can fuck me now. Please.”

So Hoseok does.

Slowly at first, like he wants to make sure Changkyun really wants what he’s asking for and it’s incredible. It’s so incredible and Changkyun rocks back into those strokes even though it pulls his shoulders at an angle and the belt doesn’t even let him get that far, anyway, because he wants to feel it. He wants to feel Hoseok. So this – this slow, long, torturous drag of cock in and out of his ass is good, definitely good, but it’s not the kind of good he needs right now. Which is stupid and hypocritical because literal minutes ago, he got overwhelmed just fucking _taking_ Hoseok’s dick and the proof is glaring up at him from the red welts on his arm.

It’s stupid and hypocritical but it’s okay because Hoseok knows. He knows and he understands because his hands appear on the headboard either side of Changkyun’s and he takes a chunk out of the skin below his ear and Changkyun didn’t realise you could actually _miss_ a person’s mouth but here he is, sighing with relief, anyway. Hoseok rasps a word into his throat, just one word, but it’s enough to make him shudder so hard it shakes the other man’s body too.

Harder. That’s all he says. Harder – with _just_ enough of a question mark at the end to trigger an entire fucking cascade of _please, God, yes’s_ from Changkyun’s mouth so fast and desperate he barely even knows what he’s saying but Hoseok does. Oh, Hoseok does because he grips that fucking headboard so hard Changkyun feels it tremble and this time when he thrusts: He. Fucking. _Thrusts_.

He does it again, the force driving the headboard into the wall loud enough to wake the fucking dead, and Changkyun whites out. He might scream. He’s not sure and he just can’t bring himself to care either when Hoseok’s fucking him like he’s trying to make him part of the goddamn mattress and the restraints around his hands are digging into his skin and he loves it. He really fucking loves it.

He loves it so much he’s dribbling precum on his own sheets like a fucking teenager but he pulls harder against the belt, anyway, just to feel the pain make his dick throb. It’s dirty and rough and he can hear Hoseok’s balls slapping against his and the bed slamming against the already shitty plaster and all kinds of grunting, panting gasps, and it makes him push back harder against Hoseok’s hips because it’s real. It’s real and fantastic and fucking revolutionary and God, yes, he just fucking loves it.

Then Hoseok’s hand closes around his dick and Changkyun really does scream.

“I know you’re close, Kyunnie,” Hoseok says into his ear and if Changkyun were less distracted by the hand jerking his cock in time to the dick already pounding his asshole, he’d be impressed with how easily he keeps up the rhythm one-handed. As it is, he only just has the brain capacity to stop himself toppling over fucking sideways, let alone appreciate the technique.  
“Come on, I want to feel you clenching around my cock.”

Changkyun can only moan, holding on as his body is thrown back and forth between Hoseok’s dick and that goddamn headboard he’ll never be able to look at the same way again, and it’s barely three strokes later when he cums. Shuddering and gasping and choking on Hoseok’s name as he paints the bed below him.

His knees give out – it’s a fucking miracle they even made it this fucking far – and Hoseok catches him around the waist before he can sag into the sheets. He stays there, whimpering and shaking through one of the most explosive fucking climaxes of his life, and Hoseok keeps fucking him. Faster and deeper and more frenzied until Changkyun’s very definitely fucking crying and his whole body is twitching and his wrists are _screaming_. Then Hoseok shoves into him so deep he feels it in his goddamn throat and hooks his fingers into the corner of Changkyun’s mouth to kiss him and that’s how he cums, panting against Changkyun’s lips.

They stay there. Just kissing and touching and breathing each other in. It’s nice. Really nice. Too nice, really, because Changkyun thinks he might want to just live in this moment forever – with Hoseok pressed up against his back, warm and solid and damp with sweat, kissing him long and lingering and perfect. So he holds onto it for as long as he can, fucking basking in it, until eventually the angle of his neck is unbearable and the restraints too tight and his eyelids too goddamn heavy and, with a reluctance that verges on outright bitterness, he has to break away.

“The belt,” is all he says and Hoseok, being Hoseok, knows exactly what he wants. He frees his wrists with a couple of quick tugs and Changkyun sighs with relief. Then Hoseok gently takes his hands, massaging the life back into them, and he does it again.  
“You okay? Want me to get you some ice?”  
Changkyun shakes his head, eyes closed. “’m good. Just want to sleep.”  
“I know, Kyunnie, but have some water first. And a granola bar or something; I’ll have to change the sheets anyway.”  
“Noooo,” Changkyun complains. “I just got comfy.”  
He feels Hoseok’s soft laugh against his cheek.

“You are _not_ sleeping naked on sheets covered in cum. Don’t pout. _Don’t_ , Kyunnie; you’ll thank me later. Trust me.”  
“Fine,” Changkyun sighs, absolutely 100% pouting, and he feels lips touch his forehead.  
“I’m going to get some water, okay? And probably a towel. Be right back.”  
Changkyun sighs for the 874th time. “Okay.”

Time slides past him, after that, continuous and malleable – fragments of colour flashing in a kaleidoscope across his lids. A blue water bottle in the palm of his hand. A cloth against his stomach, sort of red, sort of orange. Grey fabric of a worn-out hoodie sliding over his head. A kiss that’s yellow, definitely yellow, and…Hoseok.

He’s not a colour. Obviously. You can’t stuff an entire human being into one paint can no matter how extensive the Dulux colour chart. If you could though, and if Changkyun were to choose, Hoseok would be purple.

Which is fucking terrible, really.

Genuinely, horrifically fucking terrible because it means Changkyun is screwed. Screwed and fucked and whatever other synonyms for ‘utterly fucking doomed’ there are littering the abandoned alleyway that is the English language because oh God, Hoseok is purple. He’s purple – deeply, undeniably purple – and purple…

Well, purple is Changkyun’s favourite colour.


	8. My mother never told me not to stare (sorry)

Once upon a time, just after Hoseok moved in but before Changkyun’s recurring dreams about his fingers, Hoseok told him he’d always wanted to sing.

They were in the living room, some shitty movie on the TV that neither of them were watching but couldn’t be bothered to switch off and Hoseok was leaning up against the sofa by Changkyun’s leg, sitting on the carpet. He’s always on the fucking carpet. Changkyun asked him about it once, about the vendetta he apparently had against perfectly good furniture, and he just shrugged and said, “more leg room” and, well, you can’t really argue with that, can you?

Anyway, he was on the carpet and there must’ve been some kind of pivotal ‘reach for your dreams’ moment on that shitty movie they weren’t really watching because Hoseok leaned his head back against the sofa and said – in his usual conversational way, “I used to want to make music.”

It made Changkyun look at him. Not just the casual, ‘oh it’s my buddy’s brother’ friendly-but-ultimately-polite nod; a real, genuine look. It was probably the first time he’d actually, properly seen Hoseok – no, it _had_ to have been because that’s when he noticed the way his ears stick out a little under his hair and how utterly fucking endearing that was. Then all of a sudden, he couldn’t stop noticing things. The way his eyelashes slanted down over his eyes. A little mole on his chin. How his earrings glinted in the reflection of the TV.

He was still busy noticing when Hoseok spoke again and the sound made him jump like he’d been caught out somehow. It was fine, though. Hoseok was too wrapped up in his wistfulness to notice Changkyun staring at him like a creep and seconds later, Changkyun was wrapped up in it too.

He’d always wanted to make music, he said. When he was younger, he’d even studied it; composition, music theory, the whole kit and kaboodle. By the time he was finished, he had all kinds of big ideas – everyone does, you know? Sure, it’ll be hard. You know it’ll be hard, but you think hey, as long as I’m doing what I love and people want to hear what I make, it’ll be okay.

Then life gets in the way.

Or, at least, it changes things. Hoseok had all these big plans to write and sing and produce and then somebody offered him a job – a different job – and that was that. He kept it up, you know, in his spare time. Writing lyrics and whatnot. It never amounted to anything and it probably never would but he liked it and it made him feel good to keep it up. To keep creating. You know what I mean?

Changkyun did know. Changkyun, who studied design and didn’t have a fucking clue what he was doing until he started tattooing, knew exactly what Hoseok meant. He knew and he understood and now, looking back on it, that moment right there might actually have been one of _the_ moments. Like when that godforsaken cat mug met its maker in the kitchen floor. Or the time Hoseok woke him up to watch some fireworks that someone, somewhere was setting off because he didn’t want him to miss out.

It all happened so gradually, just handfuls of seconds scattered over minutes, hours, fucking _days_ , it's really not Changkyun's fault he didn't notice until it was too late. One minute, he was looking at the blank canvas of his best friend's brother and the next there was Hoseok staring out at him in same purple staining his own fingers and the worst part, the absolute _worst_ part of it all?

He can't even remember picking up the goddamn paint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm two days late, I know, but I've been so busy I haven't even glanced at my laptop since Wednesday it's just been lying sadly by the window like it's in a sad music video circa. 2003. I am present and accounted for today though so I offer you this snippet of changkyun experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion in the space of about 600 words and a bit later, when I've had a chance to edit and whatnot, I'll post the next part too so get ready for a bit of Jooheon!


	9. Everything is fine part 2: everything is not fine

Changkyun is doing great.

He’s coping really well with his barely conscious, post-sex revelation, actually. Sure, it’s because he’s just completely ignoring it, but hey, he’s holding it together. Or, at least, he was holding it together. In fact, he was holding it together so well he wasn’t even doing weird things around Hoseok like shooting finger guns at him unprovoked – which, in his opinion, is fucking character development.

Unfortunately, that all went straight out the fucking window when he answered a call from Jooheon – expecting the usual update on the woes of university exchange programs during a pandemic – and got a blunt, “What the fuck is going on?” instead.

“What? Nothing,” he says, too fast, and it obviously sounds about as believable to Jooheon as it does to him because the other guy snorts.  
“Oh, well, now I’m convinced. Come on, Changkyun, what gives?”  
“Nothing,” he says again, slightly more naturally this time. Progress. “What’re you talking about?”  
“What am I talking about? Well, let’s see. You’ve been under nationwide house arrest for three weeks but you haven’t updated me on La Casa de Papel _once_ , you have pink hair all of a sudden, and your last, like, three tattoo designs are all sad as fuck, bro. Great, obviously, but sad.”

“Circumstantial. It’s lockdown, everybody’s acting weird.”  
“So you admit you’re acting weird.”  
“No!” Changkyun swallows, feeling sweat bead up on his forehead. Under his fucking pink hair. “No, no, I just wanted a change. Expand my horizons, mix things up a bit. You know how it is.”

“Changkyun?”  
He holds his breath. “Yeah?”  
“Dude, I love you but you’re full of shit.”  
“No, I’m–”  
“Yes, you are. You’re so full of shit, I can actually smell it through the phone.”  
Changkyun wrinkles his nose up. “Okay, gross.”  
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t true, though. What’s going on with you, man? Is it my brother? Is that why you won’t tell me? Did something happen with Hoseok?”

Changkyun stops breathing altogether. His pulse is thrumming so hard in his ears, it’s a fucking miracle Jooheon doesn’t hear it through the damn phone. What the hell is he supposed to do? Just laugh and say ‘nope, everything’s absolutely fine and dandy, tell me more about the recycling system over there, it sounds fascinating’? Maybe he should. Maybe it’d be better to pretend everything’s peachy until the last week is over and Hoseok leaves and Jooheon can finally come back and Changkyun won’t feel like he’s suffocating every second of every fucking day.

Maybe that’d be better but he doesn’t get a chance to find out because he’s been too quiet for too long and Jooheon notices because he’s Jooheon and they’ve known each other since the dawn of fucking time.

“Oh shit, it’s Hoseok? Really? I know it’s gotta be weird being stuck there together when you barely know each other but I thought…I don’t know, I thought you guys would be home gym bros by now. Did something happen?”  
Changkyun takes a deep breath, pretending not to notice his hand shaking against his ear. “Something happened. But it’s…it’s not what you think.”  
“What? Not what I…”

He trails off and Changkyun can hear the exact moment when he realises, that little ‘oh’ of understanding he knows so well he can actually picture the expression to go with it. There’s another ‘oh’ – even quieter than the last – and Changkyun squeezes his eyes shut.

“Are you…” Jooheon asks and it’s like he’s trying to find the right words. “Changkyun, are you fucking my brother?”  
Yep. Those words work. Unfortunately Changkyun can only seem to manage a strained, “I…” in response but apparently that’s more than enough confirmation for Jooheon because he makes a noise like a strangled cat.  
“Holy shit. Ho-ly shit, you really are. You’re fucking my brother. Holy shit.”

Actually, Hoseok is very much the one fucking _him_ but Changkyun feels like now isn’t the time to point that out.

“God, I’m so sorry,” he half-groans, absurdly close to actual fucking tears. “I didn’t – fuck I’m so sorry.”  
“What? Why?”  
“What do you mean ‘why’? He’s your brother!”  
“Yeah, and?”  
“Well, he…I mean, isn’t it against some kind of code to sleep with your friend’s brother?”

Jooheon laughs at that. Actually _laughs_. Here Changkyun is, bolt upright in his own bed, choking on self-hatred and the thought he might lose his best friend because he couldn’t keep it in his fucking pants, and that best friend is fucking _laughing_.

“Is this what you’ve so been stressed out about? That I’d be pissed about you sleeping with my brother?”  
“Well…sort of.”  
Jooheon laughs again. “You spend more time over-thinking than literally anyone I’ve ever met, you know that? Jeez. Well, sorry to burst your self-loathing bubble but you’re both grown men, you can sleep with whoever the hell you want.”

Changkyun can’t believe his fucking ears. “What?”  
“Christ, I’m saying I don’t give a shit about you having sex with Hoseok.”  
“You…really? You don’t care?”  
“Of course not! I’m not his fucking keeper, dude, he can do whatever he wants. You’re both consenting adults and, well, you’re in lockdown together. It makes sense things would get, uh, up close and personal. Just please don’t ever tell me the details. Please, for my mental health and wellbeing.”  
“Yeah, well, your mental health and wellbeing can relax. Lockdown’s over in a week so he’ll be leaving, anyway.”

Fuck. He said too much. Fuck, he said too fucking much – he was just so relieved Jooheon didn’t freak out about the whole ‘I’m having regular, round the clock sex with your brother’ thing, it sort of slipped out. Sure, it’s just the truth. Lockdown _is_ over in a week and Hoseok _will_ be leaving but this is Jooheon he’s talking to and Jooheon knows him a little too well and he hears it. That goddamn longing. He’s been trying to shove it inside a box and lock it away for days already but he just can’t seem to find the right key and here it is, leaking out again, and Jooheon notices without even being there.

“Ah, Changkyunnie,” is all he says but it’s enough. It’s more than enough.

“I know,” Changkyun replies and wow, maybe he will cry, actually. “I know but it’s fine. I’m fine.”  
“No you’re not,” Jooheon says sadly and Changkyun finds himself shaking his head to the empty room.  
“No, I’m not but I will be. I just – I need some time.”  
“Does he…does Hoseok know?”  
“No.”  
“Maybe you should tell–”  
“I can’t, Jooheon. He’s leaving in a week and he doesn’t– it’s just sex for him. Easy, you know?”  
“He said that?”

“No, no,” Changkyun clarifies quickly, hearing the shocked anger in his friend’s voice. “We haven’t even talked about it but I mean, it’s like you said, right? We’re shut up in here together all the time, something was bound to happen. It’s my fault for getting…”  
“Feelings?” Jooheon finishes and Changkyun sighs.  
“Yeah. Feelings.”  
“God, I’m sorry, Changkyunnie.”  
“It’s okay. Like I said, it’s my own fault.”  
“It’s not- look, I really think you should tell him.”  
“Jooheon–”  
“I know, he’s leaving but listen, don’t you think that makes it kind of perfect?”

Changkyun actually pulls his phone away from his ear to stare at it for a second.  
“Seriously? What about this fuckfest is perfect, exactly?”  
“He’s leaving in a week, right? When lockdown’s over?”  
“That’s what I just said. Literally five seconds ago.”  
“I know but hear me out for a minute. What’s the worst thing that can happen if you confess?”  
“Sorry, are you trying to make me feel _better_?”  
Jooheon makes a noise of frustration. “Changkyun.”  
Changkyun heaves a sigh and rolls his eyes. “Fine. He could say he just wanted a fuckbuddy and I was, I don’t know, handy.”

“Okay, well, first off my brother would never say that and you know it. But fine, hypothetically, something like that could _possibly_ happen and it would suck serious ass but then he’d be _leaving_.”  
“Okay…?”  
“Don’t you get it? Dude, you’ve got, like, the ideal confession scenario just falling into your lap right now.”

Changkyun pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jooheon can you just get to your fucking point, Hoseok will be back with the groceries in a minute and I don’t want him to arrive while I’m reaching down the phone to strangle you.”  
“Jeez, you’re aggressive when you’re in love.”  
“ _Jooheon_.”

“Alright, alright! Christ. Just tell Hoseok how you feel.”  
“I can’t–”  
“Yeah, maybe he’ll leave, anyway. Maybe it’ll be shitty and you’ll be too embarrassed to come visit my parents anymore but at least you’ll get it off your fucking chest, man. And who knows? Maybe you’ll end up all lovey-dovey and I’ll have to fight him to get my room back. Either way, you won’t have to regret bottling it all up.”  
“Who says I’ll regret it?”

Jooheon laughs again but it’s soft. Hollow, even. It reminds Changkyun of a painting he saw once of a man looking up at the stars, reaching up like he was trying to touch them. ‘Distance’ it was called.

“You’ll have to live with a ‘what if’, Changkyunnie. Trust me, you’ll regret it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are exactly two braincells floating around in that apartment and they're both Jooheon's.


	10. This might be the quarantini talking but I think I like you

Changkyun is pissed.

Pissed in a British kind of way, meaning he’s sipping his second quarantini and it’s burning all the way down because lockdown cocktails consist only of vodka and sadness – and skull shaped ice cubes, naturally – and dear God do they go to your fucking head. Not because he’s, you know, angry or anything. He’s not.

Why would he be? It’s not like it’s anybody’s _fault_ he aches just a little bit when Hoseok pulls him into his lap while they’re watching the Hobbit and strokes his hair like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it. Or when Changkyun’s lying in bed, not quite asleep and not quite awake, and he feels Hoseok’s fingers on his back – tracing the lines of his tattoo. Or even when Hoseok’s fucking him and it’s amazing and incredible and great but there’s still something heavy just fucking baring down on his chest. Something that just keeps getting heavier with each passing day.

Jooheon was right about what ifs and maybes and regrets and Changkyun was going to tell Hoseok, he really was, but it never seemed to be the right time. Which is a cop-out because they’re stuck inside together twenty-four hours a day for fuck’s sake but still. He tried.

He tried so many fucking times but he couldn’t get the words out or even find the right ones and then Hoseok would look at him, worried, and he’s end up just changing the subject instead. Usually to sex. Nothing derails a conversation like good old-fashioned cock talk. Except maybe an impromptu one-sided confession.

He downs the rest of his drink.

“Jesus, Kyunnie,” Hoseok says, when Changkyun immediately reaches for a refill. “How the fuck do you handle your alcohol so well? You’re five feet tall.”  
“Fuck off, you’re like two centimetres taller than me. Three max.”  
“Two centimetres makes all the difference.”  
Changkyun rolls his eyes and then immediately stops when the world starts to tilt sideways.  
“Size isn’t everything, you know. You’re being…shortist.”  
“Shortist?” Hoseok echoes, erupting in a fit of giggles. “Shortist? Really?”  
“Shut up.”

Hoseok doesn’t, obviously, and Changkyun retaliates by lobbing a cushion at him. Well, he tries to. It’s no easy task to aim an entire sofa cushion in any specific direction at the best of times, let alone when you’ve got a couple of quarantinis under your belt, so what he actually ends up doing is smacking Hoseok _squarely in the fucking face with it_.

If this was sober Hoseok, he might’ve been able to hold his ground against the impact because, well, he’s got a core made of industrial grade fucking steel and he could probably take a rock to the temporal lobe and still stay upright. This isn’t sober Hoseok though, this is flushed cheeks, adorably giggly, tipsy Hoseok and no amount of abdominal strength can save him in the face of the surprise sofa cushion missile.

He goes down like a sack of potatoes.

A sight that Changkyun, whose boasting a blood alcohol level of about 80%, naturally finds fucking _hysterical_.

“Holy shit,” he gasps through tears of laughter. “Oh fuck, I’m so- I’m so sorry.”  
Hoseok’s pouting when he pushes the offending pillow off him and Changkyun tries to pull himself together, he really, honestly does, but the whole thing is just so fucking funny he has to put his glass down lest he slosh the contents over the carpet.

“You know, it’d sound more believable if you weren’t pissing yourself,” Hoseok mutters and Changkyun forces the corners of his mouth down.  
“Better?”  
Hoseok gives him a look that’s something along the lines of, ‘you just brained me with the furniture, what do you think?’ and he softens.

“I’m sorry for smacking you in the face with the sofa cushion,” he says sincerely. “Let me make it up to you.”

Hoseok perks up immediately – which, in retrospect, Changkyun should’ve found at least a tiny bit suspicious – and slides the stray shot glasses to the centre of the table between them. Changkyun had honestly forgot those were there. Why bother with the tiny glasses when you can just fill a vase with vodka and call it a day?

“Let’s play a game,” Hoseok says, which is not at all what Changkyun was expecting. At the very least, he thought he’d have to get naked. Maybe even down on his knees with his ass in the air.

“What?”  
“Come on, Kyunnie, I’m bored. Let’s play a game.”  
Changkyun feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “What kind of game?”  
“Truth or drink.”  
“Truth or…isn’t it meant to be truth or dare?”  
Hoseok shrugs and Changkyun absolutely _refuses_ to notice the way his tank top rides up.  
“We’re in quarantine, Kyunnie. What’re we gonna dare each other to do, run laps around the sofa? Come _on_ , it’ll be fun.”

The last time Hoseok said that, Changkyun ended up with pink hair and a belt wrapped around his wrists.

Which, in fairness, _was_ pretty fucking fun.

None of that stops this from being a cataclysmically bad idea, though. Here’s Hoseok, looking at him with a challenge in his eyes and shot glasses in his hand, daring him into a game of truths and here _he_ is, full to fucking bursting with them and still actually fucking considering it. Somewhere in that logical bit of his brain – the part he’s been so determinedly ignoring in favour of Hoseok’s cock in his ass – he knows this is probably not going to end well. Almost definitely, actually, because in a few days someone’s going to hit play on a world that’s spent a month on pause and they’re all going to have to pick up the script where they left off.

Which sucks, actually, because Changkyun’s forgotten his fucking lines.

So, it’s a bad idea. It’s a really bad fucking idea but Changkyun finds himself flicking the lid off the vodka anyway, spilling it ever so slightly when he pours them each a shot, and then sets one decisively in front of Hoseok.

He catches his gaze.

“Truth…or drink?”

“Truth,” Hoseok answers because of course he does; it’d be a pretty short game if they were just slugging shots right off the bat, and luckily Changkyun’s just left enough of drunk to have a question lined up.  
“Why does it turn you on so much when people say ‘please’?”

He never said it was a _good_ question.

He is curious about the answer, though. It’s been on the edge of his mind since that first hand job all those fucking lifetimes ago and at least sex talk is familiar territory, away from other, more dangerous topics that might veer a little too close to the secret taking up residence in Changkyun’s left ventricle. Besides, the sex is so natural now, so regular for the two of them, it’s almost mundane. Well, as mundane as you can get when you have a safe word and the occasional plug up the ass.

Now _that_ was a fucking memorable evening.

If Hoseok picks up on the distraction technique, he doesn’t show it. Either he’s too tipsy to notice or too sober to address it because he just grins like he’s absolutely thrilled with the question and leans on the table, only narrowly avoiding a half-eaten plate of pretzels, which Changkyun still can’t decide if he actually likes.

“It doesn’t,” he says, but Changkyun’s three functioning braincells are still on snack food.  
“What?”  
“I don’t really care that much about people saying ‘please’ or whatever.”  
Changkyun stares at him. “Are…are you serious? I asked you to ‘please get me the remote’ earlier and you got a semi.”  
“That’s different.”  
“How? Literally how is that different?”

Hoseok looks at him. Intense and silent, like he’s looking for something in particular, and so fucking unexpected Changkyun almost chomps on his own goddamn tongue. It’s the hair, he reasons. Hoseok was already a lot for a regular Joe to absorb; his face is so fucking symmetrical Changkyun’s still not 100% convinced it wasn’t hand-carved by God. Sometimes looking at him directly is a little bit like having your curtains thrown open at the ass-crack of dawn when you’re still full of tequila and regret from the night before.

Ever since he let Changkyun dye his hair, though – or, more accurately, dragged Changkyun into the bathroom and presented him with a pair of black gloves and enough colours of dye to tint the eyebrows of the entire known world – it’s been even fucking harder. It’s Changkyun’s own fucking fault too, for deciding to get creative with the turquoise.

He put the sea in Hoseok’s hair and now he’s always seconds away from drowning in it.

“It’s different,” Hoseok says – dragging Changkyun back onto dry land, “Because I like it when you do it.”  
Changkyun stares at him. Then blinks. Then stares a little more. Then he gives up on staring and throws his hands up.  
“What the fuck does that even mean?”  
Hoseok grins. “You’ll figure it out. Okay, my turn to interrogate you.”  
Changkyun sits upright. “Wait, that’s–”  
“Nope! One question only, Kyunnie, it’s the rules.”  
“But–”  
“Truth or drink?”

Changkyun is absolutely not ready to let the topic go just yet but Hoseok’s eyeing him with the kind of purpose that makes him want to shake like some sort of chihuahua and the questions slip through the alcohol-soaked cracks before he can even fully formulate them.

“Fine.” He rolls his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

They carry on like that for a while. Asking questions and laughing about the answers until Hoseok’s explaining his foot tattoo choices and Changkyun realises how very un-plastered he is. And how full their shot glasses are.

“Wait,” he says, frowning at the offending drinks in confusion. “If this is a drinking game, shouldn’t we have drunk something by now?”  
Hoseok looks at him like he’s reciting launch codes. In French. “What?”  
“The shots. Shouldn’t we have actually drunk them? Isn’t that the whole point?”  
“Well, neither of us have picked drink,” Hoseok says and Changkyun shakes his head.  
“That doesn’t make any sense, though, why the hell would I say drink before you’ve even asked me a question?”

“Because that’s how it works,” Hoseok replies but there’s doubt creeping into his voice now.  
“It can’t be. I mean, how the fuck can it be a drinking game if nobody ever drinks? It’s basically just, like, twenty questions or something.”  
Hoseok frowns. “No…”  
“Wait, it’s not even twenty questions,” Changkyun realises, cracking up. “It’s like – oh my God, Hoseok, it’s just talking. We’ve just been having a fucking conversation.”

Hoseok protests, Changkyun’s sure he does, but he’s knee-deep in fucking hysterics by then and he’s too busy trying not to crash into the table to notice or even really listen and what would it matter anyway? There’s no saving the clusterfuck of a game they apparently haven’t actually been playing; their only defence is they started it halfway through a bottle of vodka and it’s been so long since Changkyun last saw another human being, he’s forgotten how to function like one. Boy, he hopes that doesn’t stick.

“It’s not funny,” Hoseok says, watching Changkyun hiccup his way back to normal.  
“It’s a little fucking funny.”  
“It’s not,” he insists. “You’re just drunk.”  
“Please, I’m so sober after that drinking game, I could operate heavy machinery.”  
“Heavy machinery, huh?”  
“Yep,” he lies, probably still too drunk to tie his own shoelaces, “Blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back.”

Hoseok’s eyebrows meet his hairline, a slow grin burning over his face, and Changkyun realises his mistake – as he always fucking does – just a teeny bit too late.

“One of your best positions,” Hoseok murmurs, leaning forward, “If I remember right.”

He does remember right. He absolutely does remember right because the morning Changkyun spent blindfolded and tied up in Hoseok’s lap, with his cock in his ass and his fingers in his mouth, was the hottest fucking thing he’s ever done. It might’ve been afternoon actually, who fucking knows, when you’re stuck in the same apartment with the same person, day in day out, the seconds, minutes and hours all start to look the one long day.

All he knows is the sun was definitely up. When Hoseok eventually helped him get the blindfold off – and things stopped floating around in front of his eyes – the first thing he saw was the other man’s face. Flushed and sweaty. And scattered with little pieces of sunlight.

“Yeah,” Changkyun admits, smiling at the memory, “But it’s not my favourite.”  
There goes that eyebrow again. “No? You seemed to be enjoying it at the time.”  
Changkyun rolls his eyes. “Of course, I _enjoyed_ it. I came so hard when you stuck your fingers in my mouth, I almost fucking blacked out.”  
“So…?”  
Changkyun shrugs. “I just kind of like it better when I can actually _see_ you, I guess. That’s all.”

Too much. He’s said too fucking much again because Hoseok’s doing that silent staring thing he seems to be doing more often than not lately and he could kick himself, he really fucking could, because then Hoseok smiles the kind of smile Changkyun really wants to be reserved only for _him_ and says,

“Yeah. I like that too.”

Which is bad. Very, very fucking bad because that stupid fucking _thing_ that’s taken up residence on Changkyun’s chest twinges with something and he realises that, oh God no, it’s hope. Then it gets even worse because Hoseok leans across the table and Changkyun can only watch in frozen horror as he carefully – oh so fucking carefully – brushes a hand through his hair.

“The pink’s almost gone,” he observes. “It’s cute. Looks kind of like candyfloss.”  
“Yeah,” is all Changkyun can manage around the fucking melon sized lump in his throat.  
“We should do it purple next time; I still have a shit load of ‘violet mayhem’ or whatever the fuck it’s called left over from doing Jooheon’s.”

Changkyun remembers Jooheon’s purple hair vividly, their towels were pale indigo for a solid month, and he would love to find out exactly how Hoseok managed to persuade Mr ‘sometimes I can’t be bothered to brush my hair so I just stick a hat on and hope for the best’ Lee Jooheon into _that_ but he can’t. He can’t because unfortunately, he’s having difficulty breathing and he might actually suffocate if he doesn’t ask another, very different question.

“Why?”  
Hoseok blinks at him. “Well, I mean, he doesn’t have that much hair.”  
“No, purple. Why purple?”  
Hoseok, who so clearly doesn’t understand why Changkyun’s holding his breath for the answer, looks at him in confusion. “It doesn’t have to be purple. I just thought – isn’t that your favourite colour?”

Changkyun stops breathing altogether.

Purple. Goddamn fucking _purple_. Why did he have to guess right? He couldn’t he have suggested blue or green or daffodil shitting yellow instead, oh no, he just _had_ to innocently stroke Changkyun’s head and pick purple because he just happened to notice that’s his favourite goddamn colour because he’s thoughtful and sweet and fucking leaving in two sodding days.

He’s going to vomit.

“I…I have to go.”  
“Go?” Hoseok echoes, watching him stand up with wide, confused eyes that are almost worse than that goddamn smile. Almost. “Go where?”  
“Just. Somewhere.”  
“It’s the middle of the night, Ky- hey, wait, hold on a second.”  
He gets up, catching Changkyun’s arm before he can escape wherever the hell he was going to escape to, and Changkyun’s skin prickles all fucking over.  
“Are you okay? You’ve gone kind of…green.”

That’s what does it for Changkyun, really. The concern in his eyes, the little divot of worry between his eyebrows. Maybe if he hadn’t seen those, he would’ve been fine when Hoseok reaches up to press a palm to his forehead, checking his temperature. Maybe it wouldn’t send him over the fucking edge.

‘Maybes’ don’t mean shit, though, do they?

“I can’t do this,” he says, pulling away. “I can’t…I can’t do this anymore.”  
Hoseok frowns at him and he almost looks a little hurt which is just so terrible but he doesn’t try to grab him again and Changkyun’s so fucking thankful for that because he’d probably do something stupid like hit him. Or burst into fucking tears.

Hoseok might not touch him but he's clearly not ready to let it go. “What are you talking about?" he presses, folding his arms across his chest like he's bracing himself for something. "You can't do what?”  
“This. All of this. I can’t – I just can’t fucking _do_ it anymore.”  
“What are you talking about, Ky–”  
“Don’t!” Changkyun snaps, panicked. “Don’t call me that. Please don’t fucking call me that.”  
“Why?” Hoseok asks and he really, definitely does look hurt now and, wow, Changkyun’s a terrible fucking person. The nicest guy on the fucking planet and he’s hurt his goddamn feelings. What a piece of fucking shit.

“I’m sorry. Fuck. I’m sorry, it’s not your fault, I swear. It’s not you, it’s–”  
“Me? Is that what you were gonna say? You’re giving me the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ bullshit right now?”  
“No, it’s not. It’s not like that, I _God_.” He breaks off, half laughing half sobbing. “Great, now I’m gonna fucking cry too. As if drunk confessing wasn’t fucking bad enough already, I’ve got to fucking cry as well.”

“Wait. Wait, hold on.”  
Hoseok sounds a little weird, breathless maybe, and if Changkyun weren’t so busy blinking up at the ceiling and trying really, _really_ hard not to weep like a fucking baby, he’d probably look at him.  
“Did you just say ‘confessing’?”

Fucking hell. Did he? He might have, he’s so fucking overwhelmed and yes, a little drunk, he has no fucking clue what’s coming out of his mouth at this point, it could be goddamn bible verses for all he knows. Oh fucking well, might as well just get it all out now. He’s embarrassed himself so much already, why not go the whole fucking hog?

He looks back at Hoseok, knowing full well there are tears in his eyes and just not quite giving a fuck anymore.  
“Fuck it, yes. I did. I fucking like you, Hoseok.”  
Hoseok stares at him. “You…what?”  
“I like you. I fucking _like_ you, okay? I want to watch stupid movies with you and go on dates and fucking, God, just kiss you for no reason. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for complicating things and getting – getting _feelings_ when we were just supposed to be having fun or whatever but it's fine. I'm fine, I'll just - I'll get over it.”

Then, finally, Changkyun does what he's been on the brink of doing for weeks now, and bursts into fucking tears.

That’s the last straw, actually. Professing his love for his fuckbuddy like they’re in some kind of shitty romcom is one thing. Professing his love for his fuckbuddy like they’re in some kind of shitty romcom _while crying_ is another fucking thing entirely. And whatever that thing is, he can’t handle it. He can’t. Not when Hoseok just keeps standing there, not saying a goddamn thing because what _could_ he say? ‘That’s nice but, sorry, I only really liked you for your lips around my cock’ isn’t his style. That’s why Changkyun fucking likes him for fuck’s sake.

So, Changkyun - the fucking coward that he is - does the only thing he can do.

He runs away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might've hurt my own feelings a little bit with this one, I can't lie


	11. Why couldn't you have just snored or something

He doesn’t get very far.

They’re in a pandemic and it’s dark out and probably about three fucking degrees and they’re in a _pandemic_ so all he can do is lock himself in his room like he’s in some kind of coming of age teen movie – which is actually almost as humiliating as getting drunk, yelling you like somebody, and crying while you do it. Almost, because it’s the immature icing on the already melodramatic cake, but not quite because it’s hard to top, you know, actual fucking mucus.

Typical, isn’t it? You’d think by now, with all those years of experience dating walking timebombs of men, Changkyun would’ve learned to just avoid the fucking ticking. He used to tell himself they’d change. Like maybe they’d have a sudden epiphany one day and realise that wanting him to bend over a desk so they could fuck him into the cold wood over and over _was_ gay, actually. 

They never did. Obviously. You can try to divert that runaway train all you want but at the end of the day it’s still going to end up a burning wreckage against a bridge somewhere with you picking over the bricks wondering how the fuck you didn’t see this coming. He knows that know. It might’ve taken him more than a couple of jackass experiences to start refusing to fuck anyone who couldn’t admit they enjoyed having a finger up their ass but, hey, at least he got there in the end.

Hoseok isn’t like that, though. Hoseok isn’t some fuckhead with a bad haircut and an attitude who tried to get a blowjob in an alleyway in the dark because, God forbid, any of the boys catch him in a compromising position with another guy. Christ, he’s not even the kind of douche who climaxes and then suddenly he’s pulling his trousers on while you’re still face down in the mattress, telling you he’ll ‘see you next time’.

Nope. Hoseok is a _nice_ guy. An actual nice guy. The kind that offers old ladies help crossing the road and buys you a cookie from your favourite bakery because he happened to be passing it on his way to work or whatever. He even gives up the last dumpling, for fuck’s sake. Nobody gives up the last fucking dumpling. Not without a fight, anyway, but there’s Hoseok, putting it on your plate without even waiting for you to ask first, giggling about the fact it looks like Jooheon.

Why? Because he’s nice. 

And sweet and kind and _beautiful_ because God is playing favourites and being blatantly fucking obvious about it too. Sure, he’s built like a fucking tank and just glancing at the guy makes Changkyun openly pant, but he’s also just genuinely…beautiful. Changkyun could look at him all day. 

He has, actually. Sometimes, when he gets up before Hoseok, in that little sliver of time before the day’s awake that somehow feels like a secret, he watches him for a moment. Tries to memorise the line of his nose, the freckle kissing one corner of his cupid’s bow, the way his chest rises and falls under the blanket. 

Then Hoseok wakes up and he pretends he was asleep all along, pocketing the moment along with all the others, until Hoseok nudges him awake with a kiss or a touch and they’re back to sex again. That’s good, too – better, really, because it’s not a stolen minute in the silence of an early morning. It’s loud and definite and often pretty disgusting because neither of them have brushed their teeth and the bed sheets are probably still vaguely damp from the night before and having someone’s fingers in your ass or around your dick or in your mouth first thing in the morning isn’t necessarily the usual way to start the day. 

Changkyun’s never much cared about normal, though. 

Hoseok doesn’t seem to either because sometimes the first thing he does is mention rimming and the second and third things are, well, sticking his tongue in Changkyun’s ass and killing off a good half dozen of his braincells. Not that he’s complaining. Yeah, he might’ve been a tad embarrassed with all the dirty talk at first; ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ have never been something he’s really thought of saying around the words ‘put your cock inside me’ and ‘fuck my mouth.’ You really don’t know until you’ve tried it, though, because he’d be lying if he said he doesn’t kind of really love it. 

There’s just something about having to ask permission that makes his stomach clench and if it gets him what he wants, why the hell not? Hoseok doesn’t care. In fact, he has absolutely no qualms about describing in filthy detail exactly how good he thinks Changkyun looks choking on his cock and for some godforsaken reason it makes Changkyun like him even more. 

So, he was always doomed, really. Right from the very fucking start, when Hoseok stepped through the doorway and gave him one of those gummy smiles he just can’t stop fucking picturing when he closes his eyes and he got that first tiny, barely even noticeable flicker between his ribs he probably dismissed as heartburn from too much ramen. He just thought he was horny and tired and, yeah, a little lonely, he can admit it. 

That pain, that dull ache, never went away though. It only got worse the more Hoseok was around – the more they talked, the more they touched, the more Hoseok lit up telling him about helping people train – until he realised it couldn’t be loneliness because he wasn’t lonely. Not when he was so full of Hoseok he was overflowing. 

Now he’s cracked, split clean down the fucking seams, and he’s terrified that this time, when he’s hollow again, he’ll stay that way.


	12. Vodka flavoured tears and other Hozier songs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's so late I'm so sorry things were hectic the past couple of weeks but here we are, with the final chapter, thank you so much for reading this fic - honestly, I didn't think people would - and without further ado: chapter 12
> 
> I love you all, enjoy.

Eventually, Changkyun has to take a break from all the self-hatred.

Somewhere along the line he switches to pity. That’s marginally better because it means he can feel sorry for himself instead of cursing his entire existence and wallowing is, as it turns out, a lot more comfortable than loathing.

Even wallowing gets a little exhausting after a while, though. There’s a lot of staring blankly into space and doodling designs for tattoos that’d make Jooheon look at him with his sad cat eyes, which are actually just his usual eyes but rounder and more sparkly. Changkyun has no idea how much time has passed when he finally pokes his head above the pitiful hole he’s dug himself into.

Could be hours, could be days, could be fucking weeks really – but whatever day it is, it’s already up and awake when he opens his curtains. Rolling its eyes at his unwashed clothes and his bedhead and the truly _spectacular_ dark circles he’s probably boasting. Christ, he should just crawl back into bed and have another long stretch of silent crying to Hozier songs until he stops seeing the world according to purple.

Then again, he’s kind of hungry. And there’s a headache brewing behind his left eye that’s definitely vodka related and the pity is starting to slip back to self-loathing again and he really doesn’t have the energy for all of that so…it’s time.

He wishes it wasn’t because if it’s time it means he has to leave his room and as soon as he opens that door he’s back in the real world. Where you have to actually face the consequences of your actions instead of just regretting them. Consequences like Hoseok and actions like _doing Hoseok_.

And regrets like screaming a love confession at Hoseok while sort of intoxicated and probably covered in mucus.

Maybe he’ll just stay in here forever, actually.

No. He can’t hole up in his room like a hermit crab for the rest of his life. Not least of all because he’s down to his last protein bar and he doubts very much whether 60g of peanut flavoured whatever-the-hell-it is-they-put-in-those-things is going to see him past Thursday. Mostly because he can’t remember what day it is but he’s still 90% sure it’s not a Wednesday. Maybe a solid eighty-five. Eighty, at the very least.

Whatever part of the week he’s in, he needs water and a couple of painkillers and maybe, like, a kilo of something sugary so he tells himself to get it together and gets up. All six-hundred-and-something of his muscles protest and there’s a definite danger of vomit somewhere around the fourth step into the hallway but he makes it. All the way into the kitchen and mostly upright, too, which is honestly nothing less than a fucking _miracle_.

Things get a little bit less dignified when his feet hit the lino. Jugs of water sitting neatly on countertops are to hangovers what catnip is to, well, cats. Which is why he’s suddenly barefoot in the middle of his own kitchen, chugging water directly from the spout of an honestly obnoxiously large pitcher.

It’s fine, though. Maybe he’s enjoying the lukewarm, vaguely metallic drink a little too enthusiastically but fuck it, he’s thirsty and something is conducting its own little percussion solo inside his skull; he _deserves_ a little lizard brain action. Besides, whatever happens in the privacy of your own home is between you, your kitchen table, and God.

Except no. No it’s not, actually, because apparently Changkyun’s caught the Almighty on an ‘Old Testament’ kind of day and He decides a splitting headache, nausea and an entire cacophony of regrets aren’t enough suffering and chooses that exact moment to roll out the big finale in his stream of terrible.

Hoseok. Fucking Hoseok.

Changkyun had almost forgotten about Hoseok in his confused, dehydrated little brain. For half a second it was just him and the water and his overpowering thirst but unfortunately this is an awful, fucked up world and any more than that brief respite is clearly too much to hope for. So here he is, necking an entire jug of water, and here Hoseok is, walking through the door with his arms full of what looks to be groceries and it’s bad. It’s very bad.

They make eye contact and yep, very, very bad because Hoseok freezes in the doorway like – well, like a guy who’s walked in on his brother’s friend with the entire spout of a pitcher in his mouth. His brother’s friend turned fuck buddy turned sufferer of unrequited love.

Ouch.

Changkyun wants to know what Hoseok’s doing here. He wants to know what’s up with all the bags when it’s not a grocery day and they haven’t run out of anything, except mixers and maybe vodka, he’s not sure. He wants to know about that night, _the_ night when the pressure on his chest got too much and he finally said it. He wants to know why Hoseok didn’t say it back.

So many questions knock insistently against his lips but maybe it’s too many or maybe he’s just back to being a fucking coward again because when he sets the jug down, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, all that comes out is, “Hey.”

It’s stupid and he could slap himself when Hoseok blinks like he’s just stepped into bright sunlight but it’s out there now and it makes Hoseok put the bags down and come inside so there’s that.

“Hey,” he replies.  
Changkyun points at the bags. “Groceries?”  
“What? Oh, uh, yeah. I…I had something I wanted to get.”  
“Oh, right. Did you find it?”  
“Yeah.”  
Changkyun nods. “Good. That’s good.”

It’s not good. It’s not fucking good at all. It’s awkward and bad and uncomfortable and Changkyun would cry if he hadn’t embarrassed himself enough doing that already because he did this. He put the distance between them by wanting to be closer, by wanting something he wasn’t supposed to want and now Hoseok can’t even talk to him. He used to mutter filth into Changkyun’s ear while he fingered him open for fuck’s sake and now, they can’t even have a fucking conversation. All because he couldn’t keep his goddamn feelings to himself.

He hates it.

He hates it, he hates it, he hates it and he doesn’t know how to fix it either – or even if he _can_ fix it because how can you go back to normal after something like that? What is normal, anyway? The world’s a fucked-up slideshow of confusing little pictures, how the hell is he supposed to know what normal looks like? There’s no label for an ex fuckbuddy who rejected you. It’s just a regret.

He needs to leave. He needs to leave right now before Hoseok’s gaze drills right through his forehead and makes a hole there to match the one in his chest.

He starts inching towards the hallway. “Okay. Well, I should, um, I should go–”  
“Wait. Kyu-” Hoseok reaches for him and then freezes, pulling back with a curse. “Look, if I wash my hands are you gonna run away again?”  
“I never–”  
“You did. You ran away so fast I didn’t even have time to sober up enough to follow you. Just hear me out before you disappear on me this time, okay? Please.”

“Okay,” Changkyun replies helplessly because Hoseok’s looking at him all sincere and sweet and serious and he’s got a horrible feeling he couldn’t refuse this guy anything. Hoseok gives him the briefest flash of a gummy smile before he goes to the sink, making that horrible feeling just a little bit worse. And just a little bit better.

It seems to take a fucking age for Hoseok to finish scrubbing his hands. Changkyun feels the years tick past him as he stands on the same patch of goddamn lino, the cold seeping into his bones, and he knows he should just walk right back into his room the way any other person would but he can’t. He can't and he won't and all he can do is watch Hoseok rinse the suds from his fingers and wish he would hurry the hell up.

Then, when the other man finally turns around and, with a deep, focused breath, says, “I didn’t know you felt that way,” Changkyun suddenly wishes he was still scrubbing.

There's no getting out of this one, though. Yeah, he could scurry off back to his cramped room and pull the curtains shut and go back to lamenting all his mistakes. He could even call Jooheon, tell him what happened and ask him why the fuck Hoseok still seems to be living here despite the fact lockdowns over and he's free to go back to his own life. Hell, he could do both of those things and still be able to avoid this horrible, bad, hungover conversation with Hoseok and his stupid, sympathetic face and his stupid apologetic voice and all of the other stupid nice person things that go along with rejecting someone. Unfortunately, he knows himself. He knows himself a little too well and because of that he can't walk away without hearing what Hoseok has to say because if he does he'll have to carry that regret around between his ribs for what he suspects will be a very, very long time. So, actually, there's only one way out.

He heaves a sigh.

“I know," he says, hating the crack in his voice. "I shouldn’t have fucking said anything. I just – the vodka and the drinking game and the…well, anyway, I’m sorry. If that helps.”  
Hoseok watches him. Not that he’s making eye contact, obviously, he can just feel eyes on his skin as he examines the scratches on the countertop. Then Hoseok makes a noise Changkyun couldn’t even begin to label and says, “This is my fault.”

Now Changkyun _does_ look at him.

“What?”  
“I should’ve been clearer with you, I’m sorry.”  
“Why would you be sorry? I’m the one who fucked things up with, you know, confessions and feelings and shit.”  
Hoseok looks horrified.  
“What? No, no. Oh God, no that’s not – crap.” He scrubs his hands over his face. “This is so not how I planned this.”

Planned this? Changkyun stares at him, torn between confusion and something else he really, really prays isn’t hope but really, really thinks might be because he’s never seen Hoseok look so unsure of himself. The guy was so worried this would go wrong he made a _plan_ and now Changkyun’s unwittingly derailed it and he actually looks a tiny bit panicked and shit it is hope, he's fucking _hopeful_.

“Hoseok,” Changkyun says, barely even daring to breathe. “What the fuck is going on?”  
Hoseok smiles apologetically and laughs. Softly. Like he can't believe what he's saying and he's laughing at himself.  
“I’m trying to tell you I like you too but I’m fucking it all up, as you can see.”  
Changkyun stares. “You’re…what?”  
“Fucking it all up.”  
“No, no.” Changkyun shakes his head, still staring. “The first bit.”

Hoseok visibly softens. “I like you too.”  
“Yeah, that's...what I thought you said.”  
“I’m sorry it’s a little late but I was, like, twice as drunk as you when you said it and my response time was slower than normal.”  
“Oh," Changkyun replies.

“I didn’t realise you’d get so into your head about it. You overthink things a lot, you know that?”  
“It’s been mentioned once or twice.”  
“Well, I’m sorry for confusing you and being unclear and, I don’t know, vague or whatever. I like you, Kyunnie. A lot.”

“Oh,” Changkyun says again.  
“For a while now, actually. Remember Jooheon’s birthday? When you came to our parents’ house for dinner and our niece spilt orange juice on your shirt?”  
He does; it was during Jooheon’s purple hair phase. “You gave me one of yours.”  
Hoseok nods. “I think it was then. The liking you thing, I mean. When I walked into the bathroom and you were rinsing your shirt off in the sink and you had all your tattoos out. I felt something, you know? In my chest.”

Changkyun does know. Changkyun knows fucking exactly as a matter of fact.

“I figured it was just because you’re hot,” Hoseok continues with a shrug, “But then we ran into each other in the kitchen and I couldn’t stop myself asking about them. I should probably have guessed you were a tattoo artist back then, actually. You lit up talking about them, it was like – I don’t know, it was hypnotic.”  
“Hypnotic,” Changkyun echoes, mesmerised.

“Yeah. After you left, I kept trying to figure out a way to see you without seeming like some creepy older brother and then Joo rang, saying you needed a new roommate, and it was like hitting the fucking jackpot.”  
“Oh.”  
Hoseok chuckles. “I thought I was being so fucking obvious, too. I mean, working out right in front of you? The nickname? I even asked you to sit on my back while I did push ups.”  
“I thought that was just for training,” Changkyun answers, dazed, and Hoseok laughs again.

“I know.” He envelopes Changkyun’s hands in his own, significantly colder ones. Changkyun doesn’t mind. “It was pretty obvious you had no idea I was into you so I took a chance. That time on the sofa - the first time, I mean, when we jerked each other off?”  
Changkyun tries not to focus too hard on that sentence. “Yeah.”  
“That was me making a move on the guy I like. Just FYI."  
Changkyun doesn’t know what to say.  
“Oh.”

“So to be really, definitely clear, I like you. Romantically. And also sexually, obviously, but I definitely want spontaneous kisses and dates and, what was the other thing? Oh, right, stupid movies; I would love to watch stupid movies together. As many as you want. As long as they’re not horror movies because they freak me out. Or, actually, they can be horror movies but you have to promise you’ll let me hide behind you at the scary bits. It’s your obligation as my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” Changkyun repeats – fully aware he’s just been staring at Hoseok like a fucking idiot for the last twenty minutes muttering ‘oh’ and ‘yeah’ and ‘I see’ but still too shocked to actually pull himself together. Hoseok doesn’t seem to mind and it's all okay because he grins impossibly brightly – so brightly Changkyun actually squints like he’s looking into the sun – and drops his hands to cup Changkyun's jaw instead.

“Boyfriend,” he confirms. “Or partner or significant other or whatever – just as long as you never call me your fuckbuddy again.”  
“I’m sorry,” Changkyun replies and he really is.  
“Me too. I never just wanted to fuck you, Kyunnie. I should’ve talked to you properly instead of getting carried away and making you feel like that but I want you to know, it was never only about the sex for me.”  
“Never?”  
He shakes his head. “Never. I want everything. Embarrassing PDA, peeing with the door open, hiding the remote so you can’t change the channel – you know, adult stuff.”

Changkyun can’t hold back a smile. He’s not sure he even wants to, anyway, because Hoseok’s standing here, holding his face, telling him he doesn’t just want casual sex, he wants _everything_ and Changkyun would probably be a little bit terrified he might be hallucinating or dreaming or something if he didn’t still have a throbbing headache and a damp shirt from haphazardly chugging a jug of water and this is real. It’s real and it’s happening and Hoseok likes him and holy fuck, Hoseok _likes him_.

He closes the distance between them in a second. Less, actually, because he wants to kiss Hoseok so badly he doesn’t even care he crashes into him a little bit or that it’s a weird angle or that it takes Hoseok a moment to recover and respond. He doesn’t care because when he does respond it’s just like it always is, except that this time it’s more and Changkyun knows it. It’s more and it’s perfect and when Hoseok breaks away to press their foreheads together, he doesn’t complain at all because he knows it's just the beginning.

“Kyunnie,” Hoseok murmurs over Changkyun’s mouth.  
“Mm?”  
“Is asking if I can eat you out now gonna ruin my whole ‘I’m not using you for your ass’ speech?”  
Changkyun slaps his chest. “Shut up.”  
“I’m serious – I want to put my tongue in your ass but I don’t want you to think I _only_ want to put my tongue in your ass.”

“What, you want to put your dick in there too?”  
“No! Well, I mean, actually yes,” he amends. “But in a monogamous, boyfriend-y way.”  
“Which is different because…?”  
“With the boyfriend package you get complimentary dinner and spooning.”  
“We’ve been doing all that already,” Changkyun points out.”  
“True. Just think of that as your trial period. Free three week subscription, you know?"

Changkyun laughs, loud and happy, and threads his arms around Hoseok’s neck. “You’re such an idiot. Okay, I’ll sign up to the full contract with all the monogamous rimming and everything. You have to let me take a shower first, though, I’m disgusting.”

Hoseok happily complies.

He carries him to the shower because that’s what he does now and Changkyun – for his part – has no complaints about this new mode of transportation whatsoever. Then Hoseok spends a long, _long_ time demonstrating the ins and outs and ins again of fucking in a relationship and Changkyun explodes against the tiles in glorious technicolour until the water runs just that little bit too cold and their fingertips look like raisins and they have to accept it's time to get out.

It's fine, though. Their time is theirs again now. There are no secret moments that feel like somebody else's. Or weird, half stolen days constantly haunted with the dread of what comes next. It's just them - here, together - and later, when they’re in Changkyun’s bed and the night’s turned the room deep violet, Changkyun asks Hoseok how he guessed purple was his favourite colour. He doesn’t know why, exactly. It’s shouldn’t matter, not really, but when Hoseok answers – leaning across the pillow to flick a hair away from Changkyun’s cheek – he realises just how much it does.

“That’s simple,” Hoseok says with a smile, “It couldn’t have been anything else.”


End file.
